This bittersweet comedy refers to a very real event: the speculative sugar bubble of 1974, when soaring prices created a real shortage in French stores and speculative madness. The bursting of this bubble has ruined many speculators and threatened to sink 3 French banks, before the state came to the rescue. It is this mechanism that is fiercely portrayed in the film, along with all the intricate cogs and schemes of commodity markets and of course the small arrangements between friends. The big fish always come out and it's the little ones who drink the cup at the end ... That's the moral of the story! The subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 proved, if necessary, that this is still true today.
Depardieu and Carmet have crossed paths in other films before, but this is the first time that a film has been built on this powerful and sympathetic tandem. An unfailing friendship will be born between them after this film. A great selection of actors completes this legendary duo: Michel Piccoli, Georges Descrières, Marthe Villalonga, Roger Hanin, Claude Piéplu... For those who love French cinema of the 70s, these names awaken the nostalgia of blessed times.
This film is not the best known in Gérard Depardieu's filmography, but it really deserves to be discovered and if possible in its original version with subtitles.
