English version of French spoof leaves 'Little Indian' in jungle

By Parvathi Nayar Narayan

JAKARTA (JP): A little boy named Cat's Pee, a gorgeous brunette who's trying to "unblock her chakras", Russians who chop off fingers and eat them.

These are some of the funnier elements in Little Indian Big City, a French film dubbed into English.

Little Indian Big City was a big hit in France, but somehow the English version doesn't quite pull it off. Of course, dubbing can be a tricky business, and consistency can suffer in trying to achieve good lip synchronization.

The result is this film, while good, is not perfect. When lip movements and words don't match it gets quite distracting. It's also quite probable the tone of the original was lost in the process.

Humor, especially, does not always survive translation.

French star Theirry Lhermitte plays stockbroker Stephan Marchado. The pace of his life is set according to when the Tokyo Stock Market opens; soya bean options and laptops. Despite this racy, thrill-a-minute schedule he has found time to propose marriage. The glitch is his previous marriage is still legal, so Stephan tracks wife Patricia, (Miou Miou), to a remote rain forest to get a divorce.

Patricia has left him without so much as an Au Revoir, 13 years previously. The reason was a workman appeared one fateful day 13 years ago, to install a fifth phone line in their apartment. No, she didn't elope with him -- he was more like a revelation, a sign there was too much materialism creeping into her life.

South America is long way from France. But Patricia is a somewhat unusual woman.

Apart from not telling Stephan why she left, she also neglected to inform him she was pregnant. Patricia raises her son in the forest, in the spirit of enlightened and liberated "native" traditions. He has even been allowed to call himself Cat's Pee or Mimi Siku.

Mud, alligators and Mimi Siku. Stephan is rather thinly stretched. You almost begin to feel sorry for him. Almost, until the current love of his life Charlotte, (Arielle Dombasle), comes into the picture. She's a babe, no question. But she's heavily into kooky spiritualism, the alignment of the stars, om chants, fake gurus... You begin to wonder if Stephen doesn't pretty much deserve what he gets.

But back to nature; deep in the Venezuelan jungles Stephan easily promises to take his newly discovered son to Paris sometime "... when he's a man". However he is forced to honor his word far sooner than he realizes, or wants.

The resultant clash of cultures is inevitable. Even in cosmopolitan Paris, a boy with long streaming hair, wearing only a loincloth round his hips and red paint on his face is somewhat unusual. It doesn't help that he carries his own bow and arrows, has a fondness for poisoned blowpipes, and clambering up the Eifel Tower.

The movie does have ample scope for the absurd. However the narrative is too jerky. It feels tedious and predictable, rather than amusing. In fairness to director Herve Palud, there are flashes of real humor scattered throughout the film.

A genuinely hilarious subplot, for instance, revolves around Stephan's neighbor in Paris. The elderly lady has to cope with the results of Mimi Siku's wild behavior, without ever having a clue about what's going on. She also suffers from an ailment many can sympathize with -- knowing what something means in your head but the inability to find the right words to describe it.

Thus the poor lady searches to find the words "arrow", "tarantula" and "Indian". This somewhat destroys her credibility as she tries to convince other people of birds shot down on her balcony, gigantic spiders and wild looking youths in the neighborhood.

Along the way the plot gets more complicated. Stephan and his friend Richard (Patrick Timsit) find their jobs threatened and get involved with some rather bloodthirsty Russians. Mimi Siku on the other hand gets involved with Richard's young daughter. Tiny as he is, Mimi Siku has all the makings of a macho male.

His stock in trade of getting bedroom partners is to hand them saucepans, rarer than flowers in the jungle. An activity looked on with indulgence by his parents. (As both parents approve, one supposes this is acceptable behavior by "native" and "continental" standards). It's all in good fun, but still raises a few eyebrows if classified as a children's film!

The film is a somewhat unclear cross between a children's adventure story, a father-son film and darker adult humor. It's one thing for a film to transcend classifications, its quite another when the film is not sure what it is. The same problem is suffered by another movie in town, Striptease.

Little Indian Big City tries hard to be a little bit of everything -- children's story, black comedy, spoof, satire. Not an easy recipe. A number of interesting ingredients often create a gourmet dish, but can easily result in undistinguished fare. Unfortunately, Little Indian Big City falls into the latter category.