Alain Guiraudie – Du soleil pour les gueux AKA Sunshine for the Scoundrels (2001)
The earlier of Guiraudie’s two medium-length films looks forward to both No Rest for the Brave and The King of Escape with its tale of a young woman who falls in love with a gay shepherd. During their wanderings, they cross paths with a bandit – played by the director himself – as well as the bounty hunter who’s pursuing him. Sunshine for the Scoundrels announces Guiraudie’s fascination with loners and oddballs, his extravagant imagination and his affection for the rough landscape of France’s Massif Central, whose ruggedness gives the film the flavor of an eccentric Western.
In Guiraudie’s sun-drenched, ambling, gently philosophical walkabout, an out-of-work young hairdresser (Isabelle Girardet) makes a pilgrimage to the Causses plateau in search of the ounayes—a mysterious animal she remembers from childhood. Soon she meets a grizzled, slightly older shepherd (played by Guiraudie himself), and the pair set out in search of his missing flock. What follows is a suspended rural idyll punctuated by unexpected run-ins (an aimless, indecisive bandit; a threatening bounty hunter), mid-afternoon lovemaking, bursts of conversation and stretches of silence, all suffused with a sense of expectation and longing.
865MB | 55mn 6s | 745×466 | mkv
Language(s):French
Subtitles:English