OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions

'OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (Cairo, Nest Of Spies)' is a French film and it's billed as a comedy/farce, which had me worried. I'm very sceptical about the French nation's capacity for humour. French comedies usually turn out to be, well, not funny.

I needn't have worried, OSS 117 was really amusing, not the out-loud belly laughs of the chap next to me. it wasn't that funny but funny it was. Although there were quite a few French speakers in the cinema and perhaps I missed some of the really funny French only jokes.

It's 1955 and a spy has disappeared while tracking a Russian cargo boat on the Suez Canal. They send his best friend, our hero (!), agent OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin), to find out what has happened. He takes over from the other agent as head of a poultry firm in Cairo, his cover whilst he's investigating. The problem is OSS 117 is in a country he doesn't understand and he proceeds to upset just about everyone with his arrogant and chauvinistic attitude.



What follows is a film that cannot be taken too seriously as it performs a rather clever parody of James Bond and other such characters. Jean Dujardin even looks a bit like Sean Connery and successfully copies many of the mannerisms of Connery's Bond. He's not a suave as Connery, although OSS 117 clearly thinks he is. Excellent stuff.



It all looks low budget but it's based on a series from back in the 1950's and looks just like something from the 50's should, it even has that washed out colouring of films of that era.



It doesn't have a great plot but then it doesn't really need one. Instead, almost every type of spy film is melded into one and we get a host of differing characters. There are Russian spies, former Nazis who don't seem to realise the war is over, then there's the local nationalists/fundamentalists/extremists (delete as applicable) and of course, in true James Bond style there's the local crumpet to bed. Step forward the sublime Bérénice Bejo... or not bed in OSS 117 case. There's a suspicion that he might be more into men, although he does appreciate a wonderful catfight between the two leading women where they tear clothes off each other. I had to avert my eyes obviously.



Agent OSS 117 sleepwalks through the entire investigation without ever beginning to understand anything but in the end solves it almost by accident... and is sent to Iran, to sort them out.

Persepolis

'Persepolis' is the film version of Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novels and recounts her life up to the age of 24. It’s filmed in the same style as the novels and is therefore an animation in 2D, mainly black-and-white. None of your big budget CGI here. Satrapi even co-directed. It is made in French and as usual I found the subtitles a little fast at first but I soon got the hang of them.

Marjane is the daughter of a fairly well off couple in Teheran. Persepolis is what the ancient Greeks call Teheran. The film is, if nothing else, a good history lesson. We learn how the Shah first came to power, with the British government's role in manipulating the situation for the sake of oil depicted as a puppet show. Her family are supportive of the revolutionaries fighting against the Shah's regime but unfortunately rather than the hoped for revolution, once the Shah is deposed he is replaced by the fanatical religious regime that is still in power today.

As she grows up she becomes an avid collector of Western culture, particularly of music and collects bootleg heavy metal and punk. Everything changes though when her uncle is executed by the regime and bombs destroy her neighbourhood as the country gets embroiled in the seven-year long Iran-Iraq war.



She is a precocious child and as she gets older, her parents worry about her outspokenness, as she protests against the regime at school and in other public places. So, for her own good, her parents send her away to complete her education.



She spends her teenage years in Vienna, where she befriends a group of misfit students and enjoys the usual tribulations of being a teenager. She doesn't though feel that she fits in and returns home, where the regime is getting ever more repressive, and where all the women must wear the veil.



The 'star' of the film/cartoon is probably her wise old Grandmother, who has seen it all. She coaches Marjane in life; tells her to always have integrity, not to compromise and to never give in. She is the moral voice of the film.

Things don't work out back home either, she gets married, but it is a mistake. Eventually her parents again persuade her to leave. She goes to France, where she has remained ever since.

The story is always interesting and often darkly humorous, while the approach to telling it is original, if a bit quirky. I think the simplistic animation re-emphasises that the story is told from a child's point of view and works well. Although the situation is simplified you still come away feeling educated. It's never sentimental and doesn't preach. You also come away feeling that you've got to know Marjane Satrapi. Highly recommended.