"Giorgino" (1994)

Je t’aime mélancolie

Milen Farmer rocked the French music world of the 1980s. Music, provocative lyrics and, of course, the first rate music videos, which resembled the actual films. A talented film director and composer Laurent Boutonnat was one of the main architects of Milen Farmer’s success, because he directed those music videos and helped to stage her shows.

 

Since 1982, Laurent Boutonnat wanted to shoot «Giorgino». In 1992, he finally got the chance and Milen Farmer agreed to act in order to provide some «star power» to the film. The film was released… and became a box office bomb. «Giorgino» grossed about 0,5 million euros against a 12 million euros budget. The critics also destroyed the film, but was it justified?

In October 1918, an army doctor Giorgio Volli got with his regiment under gas attack and became the sole survivor. An attack severely damaged Volli’s lungs and he was medically discharged from active duty. He returns to an orphanage, in which he worked before the war, and finds out that the children were evacuated to another French village. When he makes to the village, he finds out that all children drowned and the villagers suspect, that they were murdered by mysterious Catherine.

The pyrrhic French victory in the First World War did an irreparable damage to the French nation, which became the cause of French defeat in the Second World War. By watching «Giorgino», the spectator would feel the power and verbosity of this national trauma.

A snowy village, surrounded by mountains and deep forests, symbolizes France in 1918. This village is inhabited by women on the edge of madness, who are hoping for return of their husbands/brothers/sons. The wartime cruelty turned children into jackals and one-legged priest symbolizes the phrase of Friedrich Nitzsche «God is dead» (of course in a misquoted context).

Lots of veterans and discharged on medical ground are ending up in a psychiatric asylum, which is merely a chilling alternative to quick combat death. This hell is runned by doctors and nurses, who are also plagued by wartime cruelty, are staging depraved experiments aimed at spiritually killing «rope-marked» patients, instead of healing them.

The disillusioned and bitter French people desire to find a way to channel their anger on someone and they got the motive – death of orphans. Some of the villagers are thinking that the children were killed by wolves, but most of them suspect red-haired Catherine. You should not forget that in the Middle Ages the red-haired girls were considered witches and the war is a fertile ground for the most bizarre beliefs.

On the hand, while watching the misadventures of gassed Giorgio Volli you could draw up a certain parallel with Andrzej Zulawski’s « The Third Part of the Night» and a logical question – if those events are merely the game of sick and dying subconsciousness of Giorgio. You could agree or disagree with me, but first you have to watch the film.

The War will soon end and it will not bring a joy to the nation. On the opposite, the nation would grieve for their fallen ones and experience anger, which could not be satisfied by attacking the state. Every minute of the film multiplies this mood and in the end you would also feel this pain of the French nation in 1918.

The director realized this concept by, among other things, attracting the first class actors, including Louise Fletcher and Joss Ackland. Milen Farmer was also a pleasant surprise. We all know about her great charisma, but she convincingly portrayed a mystique «red-haired witch», which is always a target in war time.

The only weak point of a movie is certain gaps, which slows down the development of tension. I think that in order to train director should have made an «easier» film before « Giorgino», but he preferred that his first film would also be his dream film. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt the film.

There are lots of cases, when good films flops at the box office. So, forget about box office and watch the story about real consequences of war. I think that such films are needed, because they illustrate how war is abominable and its consequences. Maybe someone would not talk and joke lightly about the war.