Une jolie vallée

A musical, today? Such was the audacious challenge Gaël Lépingle set himself – to paint a picture in period cinema of the French middle classes: so great in number and yet so rarely depicted on the silver screen. After La Prisonnière du Pont-aux-Dions and Julien, a coming-of-age story about a teenager in la Beauce, the film-maker continues his exploration of the French provinces. The setting: a village in the Tarn region in summer. The protagonists: the villagers. The story, however, is more hectic, the plot wending its way in vibrant colours through familiar territory – The Three Musketeers. In this musical, Dumas’ celebrated characters – the musketeers, the queen, Richelieu, etc., swoon in living rooms with TVs on garish sofas, talk in the wistful quiet of the pedestrianized streets with ready-made ruins laid on, debate in the pharmacy, party in the miserably dingy village halls, their words sung in an attempt to contaminate the bleak surroundings.