No pasaran (2009)
Directed by Emmanuel Caussé, Eric Martin

Film Review

Famous for their regular contributions to Canal+'s Groland escapades, Emmanuel Caussé and Eric Martin make their film directing debut with this western-style eco-comedy which, for all its wild excesses, is highly topical and reminds us of the constant threat our beautiful countryside faces from what is so laughingly called 'progress'.  No Pasaran derives its title from the rallying cry of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War - it translates as: "They will not pass!"  The battle lines are clearly drawn, between self-interested politicians and lawyers who hope to capitalise on the building of a motorway through an area of exceptional natural beauty  (in the stunning Ariège department of southwest France) and an uneasy alliance of those who want merely to protect their way of life and those who are itching for an ecologically motivated punch-up.  All this sounds terribly clichéd and, if the film has one killer fault, it is that it relies far too heavily on familiar clichés, lazily using caricature instead of developing rounded, believable characters.

Whilst No Pasaran offers few surprises and treads well-worn ground somewhat clumsily for the most part, it is hard to resist its boisterous sense of fun and frequent excursions into the bizarrely surreal.. Voice over narration is provided by a cute mountain bear (whose nasty comeuppance provides a treat for those who can stick with the film right to the end).  Most of the characters look as if they have fallen from the pages of a satirical comic book, the most enjoyably daft being a mad ego-warrior enthusiastically played by Rossy de Palma, famous for her frequent collaborations with the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.  No Pasaran is perhaps too off-the-wall and anarchic to be taken seriously, but its unbridled humour (an odd mix of black comedy and farce) and weird flights of fancy make it a reasonably entertaining timewaster, and, because the natural splendour of the location is so vividly evoked, we are never allowed to forget the film's serious political subtext for a moment.

Film Synopsis

Maxence Lafourcade is a contented thirty-something who is happy rearing pigs on his small farm in the Pyrenees.  Imagine then his horror when he discovers that the authorities have given the green light for a motorway to be built just a few feet from his doorstep!  The local mayor has laboured day and night for months to get the motorway in his backyard, convinced that it will bring much prosperity to the region, and he has no intention of cancelling the project.  Determined to save his farm and his way of life, Maxence allies himself with his neighbour, an American lawyer, and his eccentric artist, Scarlett, who is fixated on painting mutilated animals.  Within no time, Maxence has assembled a small but determined resistance army which includes: his cousin, the owner of a petrol station who fears losing his customers; the mayor's nephew, a football champion; and a hyper-aggressive eco-warrior...