An endearing comedy verging on drama ,which was unfairly neglected when it was released ;perhaps handicapped by an English title (we're French ,dash it!), it went almost unnoticed except by the critics .It's a very accessible movie
though ,highbrow stuff nohow.
After a break-up, Frantz, a thirty-something gay, wants to go back to his roots,namely his native Austria. His friends Gabriel and Nicolas are dismayed :without him,things would not be the same anymore .So they take five days off and they follow him en route to their pal's homeland .
In the sunny landscapes of Austrian mountains (splendid cinematography on location), all is not as rosy as it appears ;both buddies love the Parisian life and cannot relate to the one horse town where Rudolf intends to live ; they discover a way of life they do not know (the Austrian Frühstück when Gabriel asks for a "café liégeois" (=coffee ice with whipped cream!))and both can't speak a single word in German ; they find their friend's new appartment terrible and the rabbits 'episode might be a (probably unwitting) way of preventing their friend from getting the job.
Beyond the clash of the cultures, it soon appears that the three men are neurotics , nearing forty and middle-age and that time moves too fast ;an admirable scene shows Frantz making his pals visit his family home! Frantz never speaks of his parents and only his grandmother whose picture graces the wall of his flat seems a nice souvenir; his main purpose when he comes back to the quietness of the place is to write a book (one hears extracts of what he writes) ,but will he find an editor?
Gabriel is nostalgic too ,and a holiday camp supervisor ,a former lover, is around the place ; he gets out of his way to meet him again , but it's not what he expected .
As for Nicolas, he tries to seduce a young one on a gay beach , but he 's just forgotten that he's twice his age .
All in all ,their problems are the same as the straights'; it's really an intimate,decent and nice psychological drama,devoid of vulgarity .
But the last five minutes are overkill ,and should have been edited out : the ghost with the voice of Nina Hagen mars the ending (even if your musical taste runs this way, it does not fit a delicate movie at all)
Forget it and watch the rest !
