How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (1971)

If anything, I have to give this movie a prize for Title of the Year.

Despite it, though, and the tone of the summary given on the back of the tape box, this movie isn't a black comedy. Instead, it's an Art Film (well, I'm a David Lynch and Maya Daren fan, but I still know what justified dread that phrase can conjure up; just look at I Stand Alone) that's supposed to delve into the depths of realism. By the way, I've never really understood the point of realism in film and why the mere mention of it makes film critics go into orgasmic frenzies. I mean, isn't the purpose behind cinema escapism? I know how much the world and the people in it suck; must a film remind me of the fact without clouding it second by second? Give me the surrealist dreamworld of David Lynch, or the cartoonish life of Ilsa instead.

The movie starts off on a strong note as a narrator describes rival French and Portuguese colonization efforts in South America (specifically modern day Brazil, which is this film's home country). As the narrator dismisses the native culture as barbaric, savage, and heartless, he goes on to talk about a mercenary among the colonists and how the colony authorities are about to 'deal' with him. While the narrator goes on talking about how the mercenary-the title's Frenchman (his name is never given)-was given a fair trial, we see him instead thrown off a cliff into a river to drown.

He survives though (you'd think his persecutors would have the foresight to tie him to a rock or at least pick a much higher cliff) and swims to safety, only to find himself at the mercy of a tribe and their Portuguese allies. Just as the tribe and the Portuguese bicker over him (the tribe just wants to cook him, while the Portuguese want a nice little French slave), another tribe shows up and chases them off, "liberating" our Frenchman.

It turns out that this particular tribe is allied with the French, but hates the Portuguese, except as a main course. Unable to distinguish between all these bloody European peoples who keep springing up like weeds, the Indians just assume our Frenchman is Portuguese as well. They also decide on a compromise with the argument that divided the Portuguese and the last tribe: have the Frenchman work as the tribe chief's slave, then eat him!

Thanks to Stockholm Syndrome, the Frenchman adjusts to his fate (it never becomes clear in the beginning if he knows right off the bat if he's going to be the main course) and is even given a wife, a hut, and a hammock, all of his own. Even as he begins to be intergrated into village life, he still wants to escape, but unfortunately the French merchant who visits the village periodically won't help him unless he can promise to get him more supplies the next time he comes around…

So the plot goes with a sluggish pace. Most of the film's energy goes to showing the Frenchman adjusting to tribal life and assisting the chief in his war effort against an enemy tribe, but it isn't entirely a waste. There are some interesting things here, such as the Frenchman's love-hate relationship with the aforementioned merchant, whose rich, thick, and velvet clothing contrasts with the earth tones of the village and the National Geographic-esque nudity the inhabitants (and eventually the Frenchman) adopt. After the merchant breaks his promise to help the Frenchman escape the village in exchange for supplies, the two get into a childish fight over some treasure found on a dead Portuguese's body, ending when the Frenchman bashes the merchant's head in with a shovel. In fact, the general degredation the Frenchman faces and succumbs to among these "barbarians" is mainly what keeps this movie strangely fun. There's something just satisfying with seeing a scowling, bulky Indian chief lead around the poor European by his hair (which he does pretty often).

The chief is probably one of the two characters that save this from being a completely dull historical re-enactment. Unlike the stereotype you'll face in a Steven Seagal movie, you can tell this guy doesn't spend his days meditating and cataloguing his herb collection. Instead, he makes Arnold Schwartzenager look like like a Calvin Kline model just by sitting in a room. The other character is the wife given to the Frenchman, a sharply intelligent native whose real feelings toward the Frenchman are never clear, until perhaps the very end. The best scene of the film belongs to her, where she playfully describes in detail to the Frenchman the ritual where he'll be killed and served up.

And yes, sorry to spoil it for you, but the tribe does get to enjoy a bit of French cuisine at the end. The ritual, which has a lot of nice little touches (like the Frenchman getting to throw fruit and rocks at the tribe members including his wife whom, by the way, was promised a chunk of his neck), ends with the Frenchman shouting a customary "One day my friends will come to avenge me…" adding on, at the end, "not one of your people will remain on the land." This ending reminded me uncomfortably of an episode of the late, lamented series "Strangers With Candy." In it, Amy Sedaris plays Jeri Blank, a middle-aged convict and recovering drug addict who goes to high school as a student. This one episode had Jeri in the school's Thanksgiving play where she played an Indian. The pilgrims are given a contract by Jeri's dying character, who gives them permission to take the land from her "cannibalistic, pagan siblings." There, it was supposed to be funny and reflective of how Americans view (and ignore) that nasty aspect of their history. Here, it's dead serious, and the irony that was apparent at the beginning of the film is gone. Unless I'm not quitegetting the point, the film's ending message is that, well, the Native Americans were great and all that, but they fought, killed, lied, and betrayed, and we did too, but, Jesus, they also ate people.

The fact that it's released by New Yorker Video (who apparently can't be bothered to shell out the money for a decent subtitling job, but that's something else entirely) and a quick search on the Web reveals that it's used on many Latin American history syllabi shows that there should be an interesting and fresh message here, but, apart from the very sketchy one I just mentioned, I don't see it. There's the usual "Heart of Darkness" tropes here and the movie avoids the "noble savage" cliché without coming across as too hostile to the Native American way of life (again, at least until the end), and the interjections of what real Portuguese explorers wrote about modern day Brazil is a nice touch, yet I couldn't see anything past the moral of"the Indians and the Europeans both broke promises and killed each other, so that's about it." The film tries to compensate with its "realist" angle, which comes out best in the well-filmed and apparently accurate tribal dance and war scenes, but still there's something lacking here.

Besides, if you're looking for a good movie about cannabalism, there's always Pink Flamingos or The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. Sadly, though, there isn't another film to my knowledge that celebrates a preference for the flesh of the French.


Choice Quotes:

"It will be a nice present for my uncle. He hasn't tasted a Frenchman yet."