Quite a Change from French Arthouse Films!
- Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis review by MS
This is a lightweight, mass market comedy. Draws on the old clichés of a fish out of water, with a soft south-of-France manager trying to adapt to life with good-hearted but unsophisticated hicks in the northern Pas de Calais area. Much of the humour revolves around their rural dialect; the subtitler has made an attempt to convey what it is like, using English. Although it's probably much funnier if you speak French well, there are quite a few laughs anyway. Think a middle-class Cambridge person suddenly being sent to work in a remote North-east English town and you get the idea.
2 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Engaging Film
- Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis review by KB
Interesting & unusual premise for the film .Stick with it for the first 20 minutes when you get used to the unusual accents & you get your reward .
Good story , well acted particularly the 2 main actors & it gets more amusing as it goes on .
A fine effort that I enjoyed.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
This is no Le Cop
- Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis review by CP Customer
Despite breaking box office records in France, this is no Le Cop. We found it charming rather than hilarious. The biggest problem was sorting out the subtitles, which are on the signpost on the left of the screen under 'Versions'.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
North meets South - French style!
- Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis review by JG
Long ago as a schoolboy, I took a French exchange student who happened to speak fluent english to see 'Kes'. He did not understand a word of it! This movie is the French equivalent from a language point of view. My french is not far above schoolboy level, but I found it almost impossible to comprehend the Ch'ti dialect (similar to Picard) spoken in this north-eastern French region where the film is set. Indeed, neither can the main French character who has been moved here from the sunny south - which is the whole conceit of the film.
It is actually quite funny, but the writer of the english subtitles instead of providing a literal translation, has attempted to recreate the misunderstandings between the characters from the north and the south using english equivalents, which ............ let's just say are somewhat wide of the mark. For example 'chien', instead of being translated as 'dog', becomes for some unknown reason 'fish'.
There are some laugh out loud moments and plenty of visual humour, so even without understanding the language, it does make enjoyable viewing.
Sadly, no subtitles are supplied to the many 'extras' which is a shame. I would actually like to have learned something about this area of northern France.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.