Viper in the Fist

Nice film for Philippe de Broca. This is his last film. It is not the adventure film or the adventure comedy that made him known and carried him through his career. It is a more intimate film. Between children, between children and parents, between parents, between employees and others. With the qualities of his cinema: a subtle direction of actor, accurate female characters. With at work here the young actors and Catherine Frot.

The film also has a historical and societal interest on the way of life of this provincial bourgeois family, which has its money and personal problems, embodied by Jacques Villeret as an entomologist poltroon and by Catherine Frot as a psychorigid.

... or Every Home Should Have One, with apologies to John Steinbeck whose short story had nothing whatsoever to do with the autobiography of Herve Bazin which is the basis for this fine film. Catherine Frot is cast against type as the mother from hell and at times, especially when shot in extreme close up she actually contrives to LOOK like a snake. If, as I did, you see Frot in Les Soeurs Fachees, within twenty four hours you can't help marveling at her range but more of that when I get to The Angry Sisters. In his formative years Bazin lived with his grandmother because his parents were in Indo China and the film kicks off as the grandmother does and the parents return to France to take care of their two sons. Frot's complete lack of maternal instinct has to be seen to be believed as do her Draconian measures - no heat in the boy's bedroom in winter is only the beginning. It's tempting and easy to think that Frot based her characterization on Margaret Thatcher, there is the same coldness, the same aloof autocracy and it was Thatcher, of course, in her role as Minister for Education who famously discontinued the free school milk that children had enjoyed for years, earning her the well-deserved sobriquet Thatcher The Milk Snatcher. Jacques Villeret, also cast against type offers sterling support as the milquetoast husband but it is young Jules Sitruk, so good in Monsieur Batignole, who weighs in with a wonderfully assured performance as the rebellious son. It's difficult to find fault with anything from the acting to the attention to detail in the period setting. One to see again.

A good (but not great) adaptation of André Bazin's autobiographic novel which I urge all the users who saw the movie to read.Philippe de Broca does not feel at home in this gloomy story ,he who shines in comedies or adventures yarn ("Cartouche" "L'homme de Rio" ).And the made-for-TV version is imprinted in my memory as it must be in any French's.It had the definitive Folcoche (Folcoche= Folle Cochonne= Mad Swine):Alice Sapricht was so terrifying that any actress who would take on the part would be fatally compared to her.Catherine Frot does an okay job,but Folcoche was ,is and will always be Alice Sapricht whose ugliness worked wonders.On the other hand,I'm pleased to see that one of the late Villeret's last parts was worthwhile, a thousand miles from the obnoxious "Iznogood" .Good performances also come from English Cherie Lunghi ,Pszoniak and Paul Le Person.

In the French literature ,"Vipère au Poing" recalls "Poil de Carotte".These two books feature the most terrifying mothers who ever were.And they were not invented.Both Bazin's and Jules Renard' moms were respectively Folcoche and Madame Lepic !

I love the book "Vipère Au poing" by Hervé Bazin, it is one of my favorite book. I think the adaptation is a pretty good film on its own but it lacked certain things. Catherine Frot played well her part but was not as cold and cruel in the film that Folcoche was in the book. The main difference is that it seems like the director of this film tries to make excuses for Folcoche's behavior. Important scenes were changed such as the last scene in the book was different from the same scene done in the film. Otherwise, the film was really well done. Jules Sitruk played Brasse-Bouillon fantastically. I loved the subtle references to Hervé Bazin's work. The music was very dramatic and I liked Brasse-Bouillon's voice-over. Overall, the movie was entertaining but the book is a lot better of course.

This is an appallingly inept film made by a production team who did not respect or even understand the source novel. It is a book about hate and poverty and pain. The whole point of the novel is that the mother corrupts the boy into being as slyly evil as she is. The director plays this as comedy! complete with dropped trouser gags, crass blue lighting, and ubiquitous crashes of thunder to complete the farce. The whole is completely miscast by a team of poor players who have the subtlety of sledgehammers. The film is full of crass moments which aren't in the book, such as the dreadful wink-wink wraparound. The ending has been changed! and made happy! Watch instead the 1971 version, which is true to the spirit and the themes of the original novel, with perfect settings and a magnificent cast, playing with the right amount of seething resentment and ripening rage. The only flaw with the 1971 film is that it is too short.