A cross-cultural “education” works both ways though – it’s not only the juvenile retort of dans ton cul from the previous post. Guillaume and I still (like scores of Brits) laugh ourselves silly at Monty Python, but particularly at the ferocity of the French taunting in Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

If you aren’t familiar with the argumentative French ‘k-nnnnniggets’ scenes, it’s basically John Cleese in all his silliness as a Frenchman guarding the castle of Guy de Loimbard. He verbally jousts with King Arthur (Graham Chapman) who seeks to enlist their master’s support in the quest for the Holy Grail by food and shelter for the night.

On arrival, Arthur declares his intents and noble quest and the French knight (pronounce every letter in that word though!) replies that his master already has a Holy Grail and that it’s very nice.

Cleese then stage whispers to his fellow chivalrous countrymen (who are standing next to him and would have heard every word) ‘I told him we already got one!’

Well, well, well… It’s been over two years but this joke is still going strong between us. If either of us announces that we already have whatever item is featured in the conversation, it is inevitably followed up with ‘it’s very nice’ and then ‘I told him we already got one and it’s very nice’.

But corny jokes know no boundaries (as proved by the previous post), and we not only subject ourselves to this, but anyone who happens to be listening: friends, family… a little American boy whose conversation we overhear at the Eiffel Tower…

There are some things that just shouldn’t be translated.

Humour is one; obscenity another. If you must – not to the parents. And if it’s an awful joke, one that only raises a grimace rather than a giggle – don’t persist with it. Especially not with me, because before you know it, you’ll have created a monster.

Introducing dans ton cul (“in your arse”), the most infuriating answer to any “where?” question asked. Hilariously funny (or at least a humour staple) in France, I found that dans ton cul is the most infuriating answer to an oft-voiced question.

Guillaume points it out to me every time it’s mentioned in a film, just to confirm that it’s so widespread. Even in the French lessons of American film 10 Things I Hate About You, it’s there.

It’s particularly annoying because when you’re looking for something and asking someone else if they know where it is, you’re not really concentrating on anything other than the search, and quite possibly not realising that you’re issuing forth the vague question.

- Where are my keys?
- In your arse.

You see the problem? This guaranteed answer, delivered deadpan, was driving me crazy until I realised that the approach was not to get mad, but to get even.

These days, there isn’t a quicker dans ton cul slinger this side of Francophonia, and I’m not afraid to use it with accompanying pantomime. My first hesitant attempts to bring the phrase outdoors with a few unorthodox examples at a party weren’t such a rip-roaring success though.

For instance, on hearing our group’s conversation in English, a guy approached us with a shock-mock accent and asked:

‘Ecks-q-ze me for eh my bad Freench hacksent, but where iz ze eh oranzh zhuce?’

I couldn’t resist. ‘Dans ton cul?’ I quipped. Went down like a dead weight.

So I thought I’d try again when asked by a girl, incredulous that Guillaume and I didn’t speak French to each other, what exactly he had taught me to say.

Always believing honesty to be the best policy, I replied ‘dans ton cul’ and her jaw dropped.

She muttered, a little stunned, ‘ummm… I don’t think I understood you… What has he taught you to say?’

I had to hastily explain that my French education was also “cultural”!

I can’t help but feel that my ski holiday has been scripted straight from a film. Not just any film, mind you, but a French cult classic. If you’re not on holidays, you may as well laugh at others who are. Move over Chevy Chase, it’s National Lampoon French-style…

Learn a few lines from Les Bronzés font du ski (1979) and you’ll be the life of any French party. Watch the film in its entirety and you’ll have an unnerving feeling of holidaying in one huge ski stereotype.

Les Bronzés font du ski is the second of the three Les Bronzés films, in which the characters take on the Val d’Isère Mountains in the late 1970s height of skiing vogue when any forecasts of global warming would have been greeted with a raised bottle of coconut oil and welcomed as a prospect of a year-round golden glow tan. The first, simply entitles Les Bronzés (1978), introduces the oddball acquaintances at an Ivory Coast Club Med and satirises resort vacations.

The recent third film Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la vie (2006) reunites the characters after a 27 year absence in which they have all immersed themselves in civil life and are older, wealthier and with a change of tastes for the luxury Prunus Resort hotel, but still the same capacity for corny jokes.

The following clip from Les Bronzés font du ski is a bit of a joke about all those mandatory requirements of a ski holiday (thou shalt eat equal to an annual consumption of cheese, ham and potatoes in one week; thou shalt indulge in some potent local firewater; thou shalt engage with eccentric mountain folk… and all surrounding décor – everything – must be wooden and kitsch).

The group is seemingly stranded at a mountain-top refuge and obliged to sample some of the hospitality offered by their impromptu hosts. Unfortunately for them, it’s a knock-your-socks-off strength eau de vie, with a frog pickled in the bottle. The liquor is shallot-flavoured with garlic added “for taste”. Even if you don’t understand French, the gag is universally comprehendible…

Despite a vague impression held by many Brits, French film is actually amazingly diverse – and not just the clichéd label of porn as art, whereby “art house” and “French film” had become synonymous with dodgy B-grade (at best) titillation.

I had forewarned Guillaume about this stereotype, which was further confirmed by a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink from my brother when he and Guillaume met for the first time. Still, he didn’t believe us.

It was only during a wander through the aisles of the “foreign” film section at the Piccadilly Circus Virgin Megastore (no pun intended) and he saw that the available selection primarily consisted of Baise-Moi, Betty Blue and Swimming Pool.

He was aghast at the selection’s distinct shade of blue – there was nothing like the fun for all the family with the Chorists, not a glimpse of the hereditarily blessed Charlotte Gainsbourg, and not even corny Jean Dujardin spoofs on Riviera surfers (Brice de Nice) or James Bond (OSS 117).

I must admit though, my life has become all the more enriched since becoming acquainted with the films of Jean Dujardin, who is one of the best charismatic comedians “most in their element playing smarmy creeps” in France at the moment.

Sex sold for France… but it’s been a long time since the 1970s pornography boom, so I think it’s time for everyone to clear up the Anglo-Franco cultural misunderstanding of the cross-Channel connotations of French film!

I was happy to see recently that Marion Cotillard took out the Oscar Award for her performance in the stunning film La Môme.

Homage to the turbulent life and times of iconic French chanteuse, Édith Piaf, the film is as visually spectacular as the content is fascinating.

Cotillard’s deservedly recognised performance tops it all off. I only saw the film recently, and for days after her vibrancy as the young Piaf and her convincingly cantankerous aged Piaf are all performances of which the memory remains clear in my mind – and the accent on the tip of my tongue, just waiting until I speak enough French to be able to pull off Piaf’s distinctive parigote accent myself… eh, eh… then my linguistic repertoire will surely be complete!

The film is as much a tribute and recognition of a place and era as much as lauding the remarkable figure of Piaf. It portrays a sensitive and essentially romantic vision of the artistic sentiments of Old Paris, as well as the drink, the poverty and the squalor. You get the feeling of possibility and chance even while looking down what can be nothing more than a grimy dead-end street.

Piaf’s life story encapsulates this – but the fairytale of her life still concludes at the same standstill of alcohol and destructive love affairs. Born in the heart of working class Belleville, under a street lantern or so the story is reported to run, she epitomised the rags to riches story of a street urchin making it in the big city. She painted pictures of the mythology of Old Paris – capturing visions of whores and accordion players on cobbled streets, stories from the people’s Paris. This is also what the film attempts, and it’s a rich celebration of life in spite of poverty. However there’s no life without death, and the film’s depictions of death are of charting slow and determined demises.

All in all… recommended entirely. Yeah, yeah, Cotillard was suitably gushing in her acceptance speech… but it goes with the Academy Award territory really (I’m sure “possibility for post-ridicule” is part of the Academy’s judging criteria…)

For every Englishman, there is the Irishman. For every Russian, an Estonian. For the French – there are the Belgians.

But French humour doesn’t deserve such a bad rap. It’s not all jokes about the Belgians (although here’s one: “The train to Milan will leave at 7:45; the train to Berlin will leave at 8:20; the train to Brussels will leave when the big hand is on the five and…”).

Take, for instance, one of the most deliciously bizarre black comedies I’ve seen in the last few years – Serial Lover. In this off-beat comedy, an attractive young Parisian accidentally knocks off all her suitors in an evening of morbid mishap. You’ll never be able to look at an ice-skate in the same way again…

Having a poke around in the way of “research”, I also see that French actress Isabelle Nanty also played in this film. Name doesn’t ring a bell? Well the face will. Nanty is best known to an English-language audience as the insufferable hypochondriac, Georgette, who works behind the tabac counter in Amelie (or Amelie of Montmartre or Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, however you know it). She also plays Itinéris (a pun on a mobile phone company, thus translated as Vodafonis) in Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra.


Meet Georgette…

Isabelle Nanty is also our only brush with fame in Paris so far. Having a coffee one day near Montparnasse, I butted in when Guillaume was talking about something, to observe: “She looks just like the woman from Amelie and Asterix.”

Indignant about the interruption, Guillaume continued and concluded what he was saying, and then began to berate me for my inability to listen to a stream of conversation without adding my off-the-topic two cents.

“Which woman?” he added, “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

I sulked, and argued that it wasn’t such a big deal for him to turn his head mid-monologue, and explained in no uncertain terms her role in Amelie, and with a lot of uncertain terms a bit of… “you know, in that A-Z comedian special we saw, which fortunately we only saw around the M’s, she was on it. From Asterix, the bzzt-upt-bzzst mobile phone woman with bad reception… well, you know, she’s just sitting a couple of tables… you’ll see.”

And sure enough, it was her. Our heated discussion immediately cooled to silence as Guillaume turned to gawk and I began to blush and concentrate intently on my coffee.

“Stop… looking… you’re… being… too… obvious” I hissed into my saucer, but Guillaume was overjoyed at our first star spotting. It was funny though, when we finally relaxed and resumed with our drinks, to watch the some of the passers-by as recognition also slowly dawned for them. People would slow their stride, half-turn their head as their jaw simultaneously dropped, and then regathering their gait, would wander away with a smile and a quick double-check as they passed.

…why not make men the object of desire in aggressive-style gangster rap? A round of thanks to the man of the moment, Michaël Youn, a.k.a Fatal Bazooka for this little egalitarian piece, J’aime trop ton boule. It may not be entirely politically correct, it may not be your cup of tea, but it is darn catchy and opens up the “why not?” possibilities (and after mentioning Les 11 commandements, I couldn’t resist!)

I’ll have this stuck in my head for the rest of the afternoon…

Just by way of an etymological sojourn, the noun humour was only officially accepted into the French language in 1932 – yet the term humoristique was approved by the French Academy in 1878. Prior to the French revolution of 1789, the French had esprit (wit), farce (prank), and bouffonnerie (drollery). They had humeur as a state of mind, or mood, but not humour.

Now… how to talk about French humour – and no, it’s not an oxymoron – without gratuitously indulging in the favourite British national pastime of scoffing at the French? Maybe Les 11 commandements wasn’t the best introduction to the topic…

I should have known what I was in for – I should have stopped after the first ominous signs were issued… but foolish obstinacy was always one of my “strong” points.

The warm-up was a “you’ve got to watch this” bonus scene. This didn’t make it to the film’s final cut. A fancy picnic, the guests all dressed in white and sipping on a laxative aperitif. The aim of the game: to be the last to the inconveniently-distant toilet – and not to debase oneself too much more through the numerous cameras and mics set up to document the stunt.

11 Commandments. French Jackass. My Saturday night.

The premise of the film was the same as my premise of watching it. The god of humour (in this case, controversial French comedian, Dieudonné) summons the boys to discover what’s happened to French humour. From this starting point, they are recruited to “resurrect” the glory of French comedy, and then the immaturity begins. (Of course the comedy staples of old – Jacques Tati and Rabbi Jacob – just won’t cut it anymore… lucky there are always some American pranksters to imitate…)


The lads face up to French footballer Djibril Cissé… ouch!

Led by Michaël Youn, who now tops the music charts as the gangster rap parody character of Fatal Bazooka, the lads inflict pain upon themselves and others through physical and situational comedy. They flood a holiday house for a pool party, dose up on Viagra before a day at the beach, and attempt to skate in an all-night roller derby on sleeping pills. Dizzy waiters, impromptu rock film clips, chilli-eating and bluegrass… it’s very MTV and a must for any teenage boy. Les 11 commandements is gross, but when you’re not being utterly shocked at the proceedings, you’re hurting from the bawdiest of deep belly laughs.


Are you being served? Hopefully not by these waiters…

But as for it restoring a little glory to French comedy? Well… Like U2, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…