[MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE screens Friday, January 13th at 7:30 pm and Sunday, January 15th at 4:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque ]
French cinema is all but unthinkable without the presence of Gérard Depardieu, France's highest-paid and most recognizable actor. Enormously fat now but still charming, Depardieu is perfectly cast in Jean Becker's MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE (French title: La tête en friche, roughly “a blank slate”), a chamber piece set in the French provinces about the unlikely friendship between a rustic tradesman, Germain (Depardieu) and a cultivated 94-year-old lady, Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus). The two meet in the park and bond over a shared interest in the pigeons, to which Depardieu has affixed whimsical names like Thief, Chicadee and Limpy. “This is no typical love affair,” Germain says in narration.
