The best movie in a decade

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2012)

Going to theaters in the recent years was a pain. Not physical, but emotional, or intellectual. What Hollywood was serving us was either some kind of dumbing down movie or a miserable attempt in creating a prequel or sequel of some old and successful movie. With a few exceptions the recent years have not brought any new epic stories, emotions or acting performances to us. But in years where the dream factory in Hollywood runs out of ideas and serves us movies with a vampire killing Abe Lincoln, you can not really expect great cinema. Yet, you can find it from a very unusual source.
French cinema is quite respected in Europe, but mainly for popular movies from the last century, which are still very high on the pedestal of fame. But one can hardly remember any fabulous french movies from the last decade. Intouchables is a movie which for another generation will put french cinema back where it belongs.
At first view the plot is full of clichés - rich vs poor, white vs black etc. Americans would depict the movie as not politically correct, racist, but it is actually the absolute opposite. Although Phillipe is rich, white and disabled, he is still only a human. He wants to be treated as such and finds exactly this in the poor, black Driss from the Parisian suburbs. Race or wealth do not play a role in their relationship. Driss delivers a few jokes about Phillipes disability, but they are never meant to hurt or insult, but to make Phillipe laugh and enjoy life as it is.
The film builds up an amazingly rich atmosphere around this uneven relationship. Acting is one of the best I have seen in years, both in the funny as well as sad scenes. Francois Cluzet in some of the scenes delivers a performance beyond capabilities of most actors and reminded me of Dustin Hoffmans performance in Rain man. His acting in final scene in which Phillipe meets Eleonore has been brilliant and delivered one of the most powerful movie experiences ever. While the audience has laughed for the biggest part of the movie, no one was able to leave the cinema without tears after this final scene.
There is only one thing which is negative about this movie. It is the fact that not enough people, especially in the US will see it in its original form. The reluctance to show non English spoken movies in US theaters will rob you of this gem. However given the success of this movie worldwide I am afraid that Hollywood will sooner or later make a remake of this movie, will make it politically correct and rob it of all the emotions and beauty of the original.