Chantal Akerman's "Golden
Eighties" is an exuberant, witty, tongue-in-cheek musical for the modern age.
The inescapable comparison is with the light-opera musicals of Jacques Demy,
but Akerman's touch is distinctly more vicious. The theme may be love, but the
song lyrics (which she wrote herself) are unblushingly explicit, sometimes tender
and sometimes malicious.
Akerman is one of the
most prolific and accessible avant-garde directors around, and the film's state
financing attests to the respect in which she is held. "Golden Eighties" is
fast-moving and amusing enough to garner her a wider audience than before, but
still looks headed for the arthouse circuits. The whole film takes place in
a shopping mall, as windowless and claustrophobic as a studio set. In a staid
boutique we meet Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig) and her husband M. Schwartz (Charles
Denner), whose preoccupation with business and "the shop" amounts to an obsession
and crowds live out of their lives. When Eli (John Berry), Jeanne's G.I. lover
during the war, turns up after all these years, she sings about her fears of
running her predictable life off the rails.
Across the mall is a
beauty parlor, which the kittenish Lili (Fanny Cottençon) has been given
to run by her married lover M. Jean (Jean-François Balmer). Observed
by a gossiping, singing and dancing chorus of shampoo girls and boys in the
mall, Lili cheats on him with the Schwartzes' son Robert (Nicolas Tronc), who
in turn is worshipped by one of the shampoo girls (Lio). Film manages to mix
its characters and their stories into a biting critique of love and mores in
the 1980s. The devilish lyrics are just the punctuation it needs to keep from
wandering into routine sentimentalism. They also provide an amusing reflection
on musical conventions, and the possibility of using the genre to talk about
unromantic things like sex and business. The cast is perfectly chosen. Special
kudos to Delphine Seyrig, who is aging beautifully, for her insight into Jeanne.
(Yung, Variety 21.05.1986).
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