Welcome to the Sticks

Danny Boon (right in the photo) has become a favourite of our film fest. This is the third picture that we have screened in which he has been involved. He had a small role in Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) and a leading role in Mon Meilleur Ami (My Best Friend). Here he is multi-tasking as he is not only one of the leads but also the director/writer/editor of the film. He has become one of France's biggest stars grossing some $30 million last year.

Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) has become France's all-time most popular film surpassing Titanic and has grossed nearly $200 million U.S. and on over 20 million tickets sold. And that's in a population of 67 million. It has been purchased for an American remake by Will Smith's Production company.

It's a laugh-out-loud comedy and our audience loved it. Much of the humour comes from the extreme differences between the French language and the Ch'ti dialect. The subtitlers have done a brilliant job in creating subtitles that carry the essence of the dialogue without being literal translations.

The Storyline
Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie (Zoé Félix) has been feeling depressed for a while. To please her, Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad), a post office administrator, her husband, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera, at any cost. The trouble is that he is caught red-handed while trying to scam an inspector. Philippe is immediately banished to the distant unheard of town of Bergues, in the Far North of France. Leaving his child and wife behind, the crucified man leaves for his frightening destination, a dreadfully cold place inhabited by hard-drinking, unemployed rednecks, speaking an incomprehensible dialect called Ch'ti. Has Philippe been seen to hell...

The story was a very personal one for Danny as he was born in the region in which the film takes place and he wanted to show that the prejudices of the southern French toward the north was unwarranted and that the northerners were kind, friendly and generous and the location beautiful.

This webpage has a superb set of production notes.

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/w/welcome-to-the-sticks-bienvenue-chez-les-ch-tis.shtml

Julian D.