As Long as You've Got Your Health

I haven't seen this since I was a teenager, when I was, as I still am, a huge fan of Etaix, one of the last of the great movie gag men. As far as I can remember, this wasn't quite as funny as Le Soupirant, but very much in the same vein: a series of sketches, visual gags in the style of Buster Keaton. It's a hilarious view of modern life and how one rather meek, humble chap (Etaix) manages to cope in the face of the increasingly odd behaviour of his fellow humans. There are some very wry portraits of bourgeois behaviour in Paris and in the country, and poor Monsieur Etaix does his best to swim with the tide or guess which way the current is going. For many years, after seeing this film, and Le Soupirant, I would sing the praises of Pierre Etaix to anyone who would listen, and I'm doing it again: a warm, human, hilarious film-maker.