Emile, a 70-something widower, is enjoying a
quiet retirement with regular habits and
peaceful hobbies. Time and his life both pass
slowly, like the current of the Loire where he
fishes regularly with another retiree, Edmond.
But one day, after telling him he has had a
secret affair, Edmond dies and Emile decides to
pull himself together and keep himself from
sinking into boredom by finding his zest for
life again. He rediscovers forgotten desires of
adolescence, of embraces, love but also of
wanting to end it all...
Review
Youre never too old to have a good time -
thats the moral of this diverting little comedy
which first-time director Pascal Rabaté adapted
from his popular comic book. At a time when
cinema has never been so youth-orientated and
when everyone seems to be obsessed with looking
young, Les Petits ruisseaux feels like a breath
of fresh air, reassuring us that being old and
having fun are not mutually exclusive.
Much of the films charm lies in the way it
downplays its somewhat subversive concept
(namely that an a septuagenarian can enjoy a
healthy love life) by adopting a style that is
more in keeping with the conventional view of
old age (i.e. such as we would find in a typical
Jean Becker film). You can easily imagine a
version of this film which had a much more
punchy presentation, in which the principal
characters behaved like drug-crazed geriatric
teddy boys. Wisely, Rabaté did not go down this
more truculent path and instead delivers a
gentler film in which the characters are not
ridiculous caricatures but recognisable senior
inhabitants of our own world, albeit ones who
prefer a night of passion to one that revolves
around a mug of Horlicks and a Jilly Cooper
novel.
Daniel Prévost is superb as the main
protagonist, the solitary old widower who
rejuvenates before our eyes as he rediscovers
his taste for life and his love for the
pleasures of the flesh. It is a wonderfully
humane and nuanced performance which takes what
appears, on the face of it, to be an outré
premise and makes it real and rather endearing.
Just why shouldnt a 70-year-old live like a
reckless adolescent? Just why shouldnt he
extract as much happiness from his last few
precious drops of life? What are we here for if
not to enjoy ourselves?
Les Petits ruisseaux is likely to be
controversial, since it boldly challenges us to
confront our prejudices about old age and accept
that the young do not own the exclusive rights
to hedonism. Yet its characters are portrayed so
sympathetically that anyone who watches it
cannot fail to be bowled over by its charm and
humanity. After all, life doesnt end when you
stop working. Au contraire...
