Tuesday, January 13, 2015

STORY OF A CHEAT (1936, FRANCE)


HULUPALOOZA!(Post 5 of 12)


The Story of a Cheat is a French comedy that didn't have a lot of laugh out loud scenes for me, but did have a lot of scenes that made me say "Ah, that was clever," to myself. The story centers around the life of a man who appears to try to lead an honest life, but through unfortunate circumstances often falls into being a con man or a thief. The film has a lot of dark humor that had to be ahead of its time, including the protagonist's family of twelve all dying of poison in such a lighthearted way. 

One interesting element of the film is that it is told almost entirely in voice-over narration. I usually complain about people that say that they don't like foreign films because they have trouble keeping up with the subtitles, but in this case, I will admit it was a little hard at times to keep track of the French narration at times since it seems at times that it's all narration! That being said, I found the narrative device to be pretty effective and my parting assessment of this film is "Ah, it is clever."

2 comments:

  1. The narration resembles that of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movies that I guess this is where it comes from. It is charming in Amelie and it is charming here, but man, you have to be on your toes to keep up with the subtitles.

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  2. Thank you for a simple-to-understand tip sharing. This blog is really informative and gracefully topic for who is seeking detailed information about the voice over. You all can try browsing this website french voice over if you want a good quality content in the field of voice over. I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles.

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