Dieu vomit les tièdes (1989)
Directed by Robert Guédiguian

Film Review

In this complex, multi-faceted drama, director Robert Guédiguian returns once again to one of the main themes of his oeuvre, the progressive erosion of working class ideals by social and political factors. Whilst this theme is tangential to most of his films (Dernier été (1981), Marius et Jeannette (1997), À la vie, à la mort! (1995)), here it provides the central thrust of the narrative. Guédiguian portrays the working class ethic as inherently noble yet, at the same time, suggests that such an ethic is an illusion.  This apparent contradiction, which can be seen in all of the director's films if one cares to look, provides the real essence for Dieu vomit les tièdes, a pivotal film in the Robert Guédiguian canon.

What distinguishes this director's unique brand of cinema is the way in which working class virtues are amplified and characters from this milieu ennobled to an almost surrealist level, in stark contrast to their grim realist surroundings.   In Dieu vomit les tièdes, Guédiguian uses these familiar trademarks to question whether this view of the working classes is really justified.  How can such nobility be ascribed to a stratum of society which is in terminal decline, its moral disintegration fuelled by growing unemployment and street crime?   This is indeed a thought-provoking film, but it is also one that is exquisitely poetic.

As ever, Robert Guédiguian is well-served by his familiar troupe of actors.  Gérard Meylan and Ariane Ascaride, who have featured in all of Guédiguian's films to date, perfectly portray the director's notion of a “noble working class”.  Meylan's character, with the physique of a dockworker, is ennobled and liberated by his cultural awareness, his love of the beauty of nature and desire to teach young children.  By contrast, Ascaride's character, less culturally aware, is far more restrained by her working class origins.  Whilst Meylan's character is free and alone, Ascaride's remains a part of the society from which she comes.  Who is the better emblem of the working class ideal - the one who rejects society when it ceases to live up to his expectations, or the one who stays with that society, unaware of its moral decline?  The intense introspective performance from these two excellent actors ensures that the answer to this question is not easily divined.

Further contrasts are offered in the form of two additional characters, played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Pierre Banderet.  The one feels compelled to return to his origins on a misguided belief that this will resolve his midlife crisis.  The other, quite frankly, doesn't give a damn.  He has sold out completely in order to make his newspaper a success, although he still has the odd twinge of guilt.  Will either of these two end up sacrificing everything for the working class ideal?   It's a bit unlikely.

The irony is that none of the four characters has any hope of living up their childhood oath.  Like the noble aspirations of the French Revolution (the bicentenary of which provides an appropriate, albeit cheeky, backdrop for the story), this oath can never be adhered to.  Human society depends upon change for continued existence or to satisfy an innate desire for progress.  Where Communism and Fascism have failed, capitalism appears to work, mainly because it allows change to happen rather than trying to repress it.  You either accept the fact, and live with an aching conscience, or you deny it, and end up failing to destroy the world you hate.  Ideology, by its very nature - a snapshot nirvana - can never be realised in a world where there is change.  And change is inevitable.

Guédiguian explores these themes with his customary poetry, the darkness of which is emphasised by the unfaltering sunniness of his location photography.  There is less of the comic slant that one finds in some of the director's better known works, but his keen appreciation of human nature, and of the innumerable paradoxes that lie therein, are as apparent as ever.  Although modest in its aspect, Dieu vomit les tièdes is a powerful and provocative work, one that wryly laments the passing of an ideal that probably never was and warns us that all ideology, however honourable and persuasive, is bound to fail in the end.

Film Synopsis

Many years ago, four children - three boys and one girl - made a sacred vow that they would never forget their humble origins, no matter which course their lives took.  Twenty years on, the four friends are reunited in their hometown in the South France on the eve of the French bicentenary celebrations in 1989.  Cochise has abandoned a successful career as a writer and returns to live with his mother.  Frisé divides his time between doing odd jobs, teaching the local children and painting landscapes.  Quatre-oeil is the editor of a local newspaper.  Tirelire is a waitress in a tea salon.  Which, if any, of the four will remain true to the oath they took when children?