Cookies (1975) User Reviews

sex is good in Brittany

[dbdumonteil · 7/10 · 5 January 2007]

"Mais Ne nous Délivrez pas Du Mal" (1971) was a cannon ball in the landscape of French cinema. Its director Joël Séria staked out a position of shocking director who didn't shrink from bad taste. The 1971 film was a work whose prevailing mood was evil. "Les Galettes De Pont-Aven" is openly dissimilar to the 1971 film. The general estimation might even deem it as its polar opposite insofar it is an invitation to the pleasures of senses and a hymn to life that Séria offers us as well as a glorification of the female body.

The master plan isn't apparently that much fresh. Henri Serin (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is a mediocre umbrella salesman with a dreary life. His wife and children who scorn him (Séria shoots in a low-key manner, two sequences that tell a lot about the way she considers her husband. As for the children, one don't see them). Fortunately, this mediocre, humdrum life is compensated by two passions: painting and sex. During a trip in Brittany, he makes the acquaintance of an offbeat couple Emile (Bernard Fresson) and Angela (Dolores McDonough) who galvanize him to bloom himself thanks to his gift for painting and his strong taste for sex. After he fled with this superb Canadian young woman, his perception of life improves.

The itinerary of a man who is weary of a mundane daily life at the beginning of a film and who is exploding with bliss in the end has been used many times before or since. But Séria's effort conveys a communicative bracing jollity which makes the viewer leave with a big smile on his face at the end of the film. A search for happiness and the basic pleasures of life embodied by an original cinematography which seems to give a major part of the shots the aspect of small paintings. Séria's stylish directing and writing are important enough to stop the film to become too crass and he often falls back on the suggested, a good weapon to make less wild improper moments. And there's Brittany as the backdrop of Henri's adventures where joy of living reigns. His road is scattered with colorful meetings. Claude Piéplu makes a (much too short) appearance as a bard whose household seems stormy. Women help Henri to fully live his passion for painting and sex. Of all them, coy Marie (Jeanne Goupil) is perhaps the most positive one because she showcases a heartfelt, pure sensitiveness to both Henri and the viewer. Maybe, her and Henri are going to live forever.

The name of the hero Serin means serene in French. That's what Henri tries to be during his stay in Brittany.

Fundamentals of sex and art inspiration in the french seventies

[saussure_ph · 7/10 · 20 June 2014]

Loosely inspired from the life of french painter Paul Gauguin, Cookies (french title Les Galettes de Pont-Aven, Joël Séria 1975) relates how a salesman of umbrellas (played by the hilarious then-43 year-old Jean-Pierre Marielle) rejects his former life and stern spouse to embark on a painting career. His pursuit of happiness and inspiration is marked out by several mistresses, the physical proximity and intimate smell of whom drive him to bliss — and boozy despair when they disappear. Several episodes reflect the contradictions of the early Giscard-d'Estaing era with witty humor, such as Marielle disguised as a traditional Breton singing a duo in a country show, or Dominique Lavanant as a dialect-speaking prostitute in traditional Brittany outfit. Most of all, many viewers will enjoy the moments when the touch and smell of a good pair of buttocks turn the half-dead Jean-Pierre Marielle into an apoplectic, ecstatic reborn. Many aspect of this enjoyable movie are exemplary of the aftermath of the 1968 movement of 'libération sexuelle' which provided inspiration to french independent movie makers and cartoonists (in particular, those of Marcel Gotlib, Claire Bretecher and Nikita Mandryka). But beware : some scenes of drunkenness are awkward and too long and may make the movie unsuitable for contemporary spectators, particularly those lacking familiarity with the smelly and 'troisième degré' humor of extreme Frenchmen in the seventies.

The Little Death of a Salesman...

[ElMaruecan82 · 8/10 · 24 December 2020]

Who said what goes on below the waist can't be visually entertaining?

Well, Russ Meyer did. Russ who? You know... the king of the funny skin flick whom Roger Ebert collaborated with for the making of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". Meyer was known for his lifelong fascination for women with big breasts and I'm curious whether watching Joel Seria's classic "Cookies" (or "The Wafers of Pont-Aven") would have changed his mind a little.

The film features an average man who just shares an equal infatuation for the parts of female anatomy that go below the waist and no I don't mean legs. "Cookies" doesn't ask you how far fetishism can work as a story premise but how far a man could actually go, sacrificing his modest accomplishments in order to satisfy his fetishism. Behind its comedic façade, this is a movie that takes matters of flesh very seriously to the point of being one of the truest depictions of the lust for life inherent in art. This is not just the work of an artist, but a work about a true artist, one named Henri Serin and played by the so-underrated Jean-Pierre Marielle. Before I go on, a few words about Marielle who sadly left us in 2019.

There is a convention that the French average Joe should be bald and spots a moustache that honors his Gallic roots; on that spectrum of depiction, you had the two polar opposite: Gérard Jugnot played the short one who could never rely on his looks but whose constant struggle against adversity made him somewhat heroic on a shadenfreude level and then you had Marielle whose 6'2'' built, hairy chest and low pitched barytone voice made him look like the epitome of French charisma, whether he played popular middle-class guys or suave bourgeois. The man had presence and such a voice that grandiloquence was a second suit and only in the mid-70s he could finally let his talent blossom thanks to the perceptive eye of Seria who knew he had a material that couldn't work without any other actor. Marielle belonged to the same promotion that gave Belmondo, Noiret, Rich but that was the role he was born to play (and you know what Siskel said, with the right casting, half the film is done).

So Henri makes his entrance in a little umbrella shop, he's a travelling umbrella salesman and when he speaks, you can feel the verbal machinery is all perfectly oiled; from the smile, the greetings, the methodic description of each model to the polite comment to the shop-owner who shyly admits buying from another shop. Henri doesn't sell his umbrellas like a quack doctor his elixir but like the one thing that roots him to the real world, what he needs to forget his sexless marital wife. It's interesting that his character-establishing moment consists of him waking up in the middle of the night to draw the delicate buttocks of his wife, perhaps her one saving grace. In two scenes shot back to back (no pun intended) we have a glimpse on his normality and his source of escapism and from his encounter with the colorful 'pilgrim' hitch-hiker (Claude Piéplu) we know it's definitely not religion. The whole second act, starting with him hitting a boar with his car, shows him sliding down to a state where painting become his normality.

The film could have been titled "The little death of a salesman", if you speak French you know what 'little death' means or you can take is as a more symbolic move: when Henri throws his own past away once he meets a beautiful girl named Angela followed by his agony not to find a woman who can match her perfect curves. But I am moving too fast, the character of Emile is crucial to understand Henri's descent into madness. Emile (Bernard Fresson) is a carefree painter who befriends Henri and invites him to stay in his cottage while his car is fixed, this is where he meets Angela, the Canadian live-in girlfriend played by Dolores McDonough. For Henri, Angela represents the ideal his inspiration's been hunting, a reason to drop everything and convert into a life of bohemian idleness but for Emile, it's just a reason to satisfy his pervert appetites. We can clearly see in Henri the desperate soul of a true artist and that Angela ends up dumping him for the bad guy accelerates his downfall.

Moving to the city of painters, Pont-Aven (Britanny), he ironically becomes the butt of the townspeople, a caricature of a fallen artist desperately longing for these heavenly shapes that blessed a few nights before haunting them by their absence. Marielle's performance is the salt that gives the film its flavor, watching this big hunk of a man becoming a pathetic wreck after he lost his muse is one of the film's most heart-breaking moments. One can't understand Henri if his mind is impermeable to the struggles of artists, people of genuine obsession, of a particular vision that shape their soul and condition their lives; there's more than that in "Cookies", there's a man whose artistic dedication was fueled with ideals that were worth spending an eternity reaching them. Even if it that ideal is just represented on what goes below the waist, after all, Russ Meyer built a career on what goes above.

The film ends with a light of hope symbolized by the young maid Marie (Jeanne Goupil) who awakes Henri from his lethargic and his resurrection is one of the most iconic moments of French cinema, a time where lust, nudity and sex weren't big deal. I doubt that such a film would garner the same reaction but even the detractors won't miss the sincerity in Marielle's despair, not the abusive man, but the man abused by his own demons, a true artist. Not convinced? Well, just remember the content of one of the greatest French paintings ever: Courbet's "Origin of the World".

Les Galettes de Pont-Aven : Joël Séria directs a cult film about an ordinary man who wants his art to be taken seriously !!!!

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 8 July 2015]

In many ways, 'Les Galettes de Pont-Aven' remains faithful to 1970s, the time of its making when people did not have to worry much to lead a carefree life. Those viewers who are familiar with arts and the world of painters would not take much time to associate famous French painter Paul Gauguin with Pont-Aven. He shares a lot of similarities with Henri Serin, an ordinary man's character played brilliantly by French actor Jean-Pierre Marielle who also started to paint somewhat late in his life. By directing 'Cookies', Joël Séria has put himself in the same league as Jean Renoir who was able to direct films about ordinary men who emerged as heroes. The entire film is based on the notion of respect bordering on appreciation and recognition which an ordinary man is seeking. He finds it after being part of different adventurous experiences. In the history of French cinema, 'Les Galettes de Pont-Aven' has achieved the status of a cult film. It was made in 1975 but continues to remain very relevant even in the modern times. It is recommended for those viewers who would like to explore some hidden gems of French cinema.

Jean - Pierre Marielle

[Kirpianuscus · 15 July 2017]

a salesman of umbrellas. and his universe. strange, full of eroticism, mixture of bitter experiences and "joie de vivre", wise, superficial, seductive, bohemian,careless. the film could be a reasonable adaptation of Franz Kafka short stories. or, maybe, an unconventional portrait of Paul Gaugain, evoked in few moments. but the axis of it is the impeccable performance of Jean-Pierre Marielle. maybe, this is the basic motif to see ȚLes galletes de Pont - Aven" . and for an idyllic picture of Bretagne.

Lewd, dated, misogynistic comedy

[nsouthern-25687 · 3/10 · 29 August 2022]

Though obviously intended at the time as naughtily charming, a "chapeau bas" to the wiles of the lusty field-playing Gallic male, this picture has aged terribly. The gifted Jean-Pierre Marielle, who made a career out of playing philandering rascals in such superior pictures as Le Sex Shop and Calmos, here gives us an even earthier incarnation of his trademark cavaleur. In 'Les Galettes,' he's Henri, the rogue, bed-hopping painter fetishistically preoccupied with T&A - on his canvasses and off.

I watched the first third of this picture, and found it chauvinistic but naive and harmless, like the imaginings of a horny adolescent boy. That is, until I reached the sequence where a friend of Henri's essentially rapes a young woman off-camera while she screams at him to stop... Then the female character saunters downstairs post-coitally with a huge smile on her face, and lewd visual indications of her arousal. All to the tune of the friend's assurances that she may have shouted "No, please, DON'T!" but secretly loves getting it. The implications here are the same as those of thousands of stock porno films.

This was one of the most upsetting, offensive, disgusting moments I've ever seen in a movie. I have nothing against sex or nudity in a film but plenty of issues with any movie that only depicts women as mechanical objects of self-gratification. As a rule, I try to judge the politics of a feature by the era in which it was made, but in this case I wanted to bathe after I finished.

Sex and tradition in rural Brittany.

[silverauk · 8/10 · 5 September 2002]

This original sexual comedy by the director Joël Séria, who also made the popular TV-series "Nestor Burma", is full of unexpected situations between a man and women. A salesman of umbrellas, Henri Serin (a magnificent Jean-Pierre Marielle), is having sex with all the women of which he paints a portrait and which he encounters during his travels. While one is cooking in her kitchen, he is painting. Once he is invited but immediately expelled when he wants to unfold her traditional ribbon. Henri Serin falls for a very young woman which he can seduce while making a portrait of her. His only friend is a modernist priest (Romain Bouteille) who likes to talk with him in the local bar. Henri Serin does not think of tomorrow and lives "la vie d'artiste". Life is beautiful and sex is life.

French comedy

[jfgibson73 · 4/10 · 28 April 2020]

An umbrella salesman travels around and meets people. He stays the night at the house of a man he gives a ride to. Then, he hits an animal with his car and gets stuck in a village. Some guys invites him to stay at his home because they are both painters. The man sends his wife to sleep with the umbrella salesman, but they end up arguing. The man gets home and finds his wife cheating. He becomes a town drunk and struggles to be a painter. Finally, he meets a young maid and they open a food stand on a beach.

Mid-life crisis of an umbrella salesman

[Charlot47 · 3 October 2014]

Henri Serin (Jean-Pierre Marielle), married with two kids and on the road all week seeking orders for umbrellas, is stuck in Brittany after a collision with a wild boar, an irruption of untamed nature into his dull life.

While his car is being repaired, he starts reverting to the man he wishes he had been, dedicated to painting, drinking and enjoyment of the female body. The latter, women being what they are, is never simple and we see some amusing encounters: a jolly but married shop owner (Andréa Ferréol), a Canadian nude model (Dolores MacDonough), a surly prostitute in Breton national costume (Dominique Lavanant) and, finally, a sweet hotel maid half his age and half his height (Jeanne Goupil) who runs off with him. So it ends as fantasy, that happiness is running a beach stall with the girl you love.

On the way we meet a lot of colourful people in picturesque settings, hear a lot of very rude French (plus some unintelligible Breton), and see a lot of human skin and hair. In fact, profanity, nudity and sexual activity abound, though not as outrageously as in « Les Valseuses » from the previous year or « Calmos », which starred Marielle the following year. All in all, a pleasant exploration of the male menopause.

PS The version I saw had hilariously inapposite English subtitles, looking as if they had been created by someone who knew neither language, perhaps a Korean computer program?