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Totally improbable name, offbeat lines and great lineup of stars (Valérie Lemercier, Jean Rochefort...), RRRrrrr!!! will be rebroadcast this Tuesday evening on NRJ12. This comedy ofAlain Chabat and Robin Hood (aka Marina Fois, Jean-Paul Rouve, Pierre-François Martin Laval, Maurice Barthélémy And Elise Larnicol) dives into the heart of the Stone Age (“Hello, Peter!”), to follow two tribes fighting for the shampoo recipe. THE “dirty hair” on one side against “clean hair”. While a dirty hair goes to spy on the rival clan, the latter is shocked by a murder, the first in history.
Shunned upon its release in 2004, RRRrrrr!!! has since achieved cult film status, notably thanks to its multiple television rebroadcasts. This will not be enough for the team to come back for the sequelHowever…
While waiting to see him (again) this evening, a look back at his lines which ended up marking the history… of French comedy.
What is “Shabbat humor”?
The Stone Age, an inexhaustible source of puns:
RRRrrrr!!! was imagined by the Robins des Bois and Alain Chabat, then the latter was in charge of the direction, and this is felt on the screen, the film being a perfect blend of all their humor: the taste for puns from Chabat rub shoulders with those from the Robins rehearsal, all sprinkled with a good dose of absurdity!
From the start, the call from the chief (Maurice Barthélémy) gives rise to a delightfully offbeat scene, the screenwriters having had the excellent idea of calling all the inhabitants of the Pierre clan, both men and women:
“-Very well, we're going to make the call. Pierre?
– Here.
– Rock ?
– Here.
– Rock ?
– Present.
– Rock ?
– Present.
– Oh, Peter?
– Here.
– Rock ? … Pierre… Obviously still absent this one. I imagine Pierre isn't there either! As luck would have it, these two are always together.”
To distinguish them, the important characters are still defined by their function: the chef, the chef's wife (Elise Larnicol), the healer (Alain Chabat) or even “the blond” (Jean-Paul Rouve, who can no longer stand this nickname: “I'm not blonde, okay? My name is Pierre. BLOND!”
Animals, sports and objects are also entitled to their funny names: the henmouths rub shoulders with the horsemouths and eat vermouths, and when they are bored the Pierres play doe volleyball! Prehistory is an inexhaustible source of puns, like this one, perfect for emphasizing the fact that the duo composed of Pef and Rouve spends their time fooling around: ''You two really have great survival, you two!''
The rehearsal comedy
In their sketches, the Robin Hoods took great pleasure in extending situations as much as possible and repeating the same gags over and over? We find all this in RRRrrrr!!!. By dint of being repeated in this way, certain lines have unsurprisingly imprinted themselves in the minds of spectators… and in everyday language. For example :
“- Do you know my wife?
– Yes, boss!
– She's beautiful, huh.
– Yes, boss!”
As well as the famous refrain of Pascal Vincent, aka the night guard:
“- It's going to be all black!
– Shut up !”
Misused expressions:
Another fun writing tic: the characters of RRRrrrr!!! constantly mistreat the French language, playing with expressions or taking them literally. For example :
” – Push yourself, excuse me… push yourself, excuse me… push me, excuse yourself…”
” – Guy, she loves me! I'm a couple now.”
Or “The trout are moving up the stream…step by step.” And “There we are at the top of the abyss.”
To conclude : “It’s funny what you say because it’s not that funny!”
The investigation into the first “crimes” in human history
RRRrrrr!!!it is also an investigation, which also plays with all the codes of the thriller. While the first assassinations are committed within the tribe, the village chief tries to find the “criminal”the culprit of these horrible crimes (and not murders, because he is very proud of the term “crime”!). The assassin in question does not frankly hide his misdeeds, yet the mystery will take some time to be clarified and will also be a good pretext to multiply the crazy replies:
“But no one has ever killed another person!”
“She died of old age…but young.”
“- What is your type of woman?
– Alive.”
“- What was he like?
– He had his back.
“Okay, arrest every backstabber you find.”
Alain Chabat talks about Asterix: “Even if it seems like a mess, it's still a bit precise”
Bonuses:
It's not quite a line, but the film opens with this intro that has nothing to do with sauerkraut: “On May 9, 1969, two kilometers from the northern border of Laos, the 101st Infantry Division of the American army advanced towards Hill 937. For them it was a simple reconnaissance. For the Viet Cong, the hill 937 is a strategic area. The ten conscripts of the 101st Division, poorly trained in combat, had to carry out this routine mission in less than two hours. They will resist heroically for nine days.
A gag that recalls the tone of Great diversion/American Class (1993), by Michel Hazanavicius, a big madness for which Alain Chabat participated in the dubbing: “Attention! This film is not a film about “cyclimse”. Thank you for your understanding.”
The infernal Montparnasse Tower: the best-of cult scenes from the film by Eric and Ramzy