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CANNES 2021 Midnight Screening

Review: Tralala

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- CANNES 2021: Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu deliver an offbeat, side-splitting musical comedy about a roaming musician miraculously reinventing himself in Lourdes

Review: Tralala
Mathieu Amalric in Tralala

"Whatever you do, don’t be yourself". It’s while he’s crooning this motto that Mathieu Amalric, the wonderful lead actor in the new film by brothers Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu Tralala [+see also:
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- which was unveiled in a Midnight Screening within the Official Selection of the 74th Cannes Film Festival - experiences a highly bizarre (and nigh-on mystical) rebirth, "as if a free spirit, bouncing aimlessly, alone, between radars, the world and its beauties". Embarking upon a musical for the very first time, the French filmmakers have undoubtedly found the ideal stomping ground for their fanciful spirit, exploring it masterfully and with great inventiveness, without ever taking themselves too seriously and also using the opportunity to set out upon a hilarious cinematic pilgrimage to Lourdes, the town of the directors’ birth.

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The situation in Paris is far from rosy for destitute, forty-something, street singer Tralala (Amalric), whose squat is about to be destroyed. "A grilled spirit, hung up by its feet (…), abandoned, without a destiny", who improvises as he absorbs the existentialist and somewhat shaky lyrics of French songs and trails along streets schlepping his electric guitar and little amp behind him, our antihero soon crosses paths with a sweet and fanciful young woman in blue (Galatéa Bellugi), who leaves behind her a bit of money and a cigarette lighter stamped with the word “Lourdes”. For Tralala, it’s a revelation: she was "The Holy Virgin" and "she alone can save him". Subsequently, the very next day, our antihero, our "funny little bird in search of blue sky", jumps on a train. And in the famous Pyrenean city of pilgrimage, a mother (Josiane Balasko), who’s also the manageress of the Santa Lucia Hotel, sees her son Pat in him - an amateur musician who went off in search of glory and who disappeared into thin air while in the US almost two decades previously. Pampered and loved, Tralala plays the tricky game of improvised imposter and adopts a brand-new personality: he now has a brother (Bertrand Belin), nephews, ex-girlfriends (Mélanie Thierry and Maïwenn) who are desperate to reconnect with him, and maybe even a daughter. But where is the lie? Where is the truth? And who is he, deep down?

Joyously creative in its zany, laid back manner, Tralala is a hugely delightful musical comedy. Playing with a Christ-like subtext ("you don’t come back from living amongst the dead"), the Larrieu brothers easily incorporate songs and choreography into a story which is vigorously pursued, despite coming across as having been written just for laughs. Prioritising "noble gestures and the right words", the two directors demonstrate, with lots of smiles, a perfect cast and an excellent director of photography (Jonathan Ricquebourg), that for those who have faith in life and in film, "anything was possible, everything was a song".

Tralala is produced by SBS Productions alongside Arte France Cinéma, and is sold by Pyramide International.

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(Translated from French)

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