The Big Hit
The true story of a former actor who tried to mount Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by prison inmates is turned into an entertaining comedy-drama.
Back in 2012, the Taviani Brothers made a remarkable film entitled Caesar Must Die. It came about because the filmmakers had attended readings from Dante’s Divine Comedy performed in Rome’s Rebibbia prison by inmates and were in consequence inspired to make a film of an abridged version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar staged there. The connection between that piece and Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit (the film’s original French title was Un triomphe) is a close one since it derives from real-life events that occurred when inmates of a prison in Gothenburg participated in a staging of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In each case a play was selected in the belief that the performances of those acting in it would be informed by their own real life experiences (in The Big Hit it is pointed out that prison life is a constant repetition, a process which for those interned can seem like endless waiting on a daily basis, thus making it akin to the fruitless wait for Godot in a play that belongs to the theatre of the absurd but yet carry echoes of their own lives).
That said, Courcol’s film adopts a tone far removed from that of Caesar Must Die. If that film may be said to have had both feet in quality arthouse cinema, The Big Hit seeks a more popular appeal (in all probability the movie nearest to it in character is The Full Monty). Jan Jönson's real-life story as adapted by Courcol and Thierry de Carbonnières is transposed from Sweden to France and given a climax at the Paris Odéon, one of France’s national theatres. We have been invited at the outset to see how a former actor turned director, Etiénne Carboni (Kad Merad), coaches prison inmates in theatre and with sufficient success to move on from recitals of fables to a staging of the Beckett play. So effective is this production that it is invited to tour and even eventually to have a final staging at the Odéon. The cast of five are all criminals but their crimes are never detailed and, like the out-of-work men in The Full Monty, we are invited to root for them in their endeavours.
This free version of actual events is on balance more serious than humorous, but The Big Hit certainly aims to entertain in a popular way and it is aided in that by its very capable cast. Merad’s Etiénne is central, but so too are the four contrasted men playing Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky. The role of Vladimir goes to a black immigrant named Moussa (Wabinlé Nabié) who has an instinctive response to the play. Estragon is played by the one prisoner who already knows and loves the play (Sofian Khammes), the well-built Patrick (David Ayala) is a natural fit for Pozzo and Lucky with his big monologue is a challenge for the largely illiterate Jordan (Pierre Lottin). But, good as the actors are and keen as the film is both to underline the value of cultural activities in prison and to ensure that we empathise, there is little attempt to portray these characters in depth.
Such an approach yields a much lighter film than Caesar Must Die, but its appeal may be limited in that those unfamiliar with Waiting for Godot may be deterred by the extent to which extracts from that play both in rehearsal and in performance are featured. Furthermore, the film gives the impression that it is building towards the single performance that is envisaged as the first night and the last. Unless one knows the facts on which the film is based, it comes as a surprise that this stage is reached when there is still forty-five minutes for the film to run. This results in a second half moving forward without a clear shape. It now depicts the production on tour and here briefly Etiénne’s character is questioned for being too self-centred. But both this and the impact of the tour on the prisoners involved are touched on too half-heartedly to carry weight. As for the climax in Paris, as played here it seems grossly unlikely – and that’s largely due to how it is told since a written statement at the film’s end reveals that the finale is actually close to the reality on which the movie is based. What we have here is in fact an uneven film, amiable but by choice relatively superficial. However, you do go out with one of Nina Simone's best-known songs heard behind the end credits echoing in your head.
Original title: Un triomphe.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Kad Merad, Sofian Khammes, Pierre Lottin, Wabinlé Nabié, David Ayala, Lamine Cissokho, Martina Hands, Aleksandr Medvedev, Saïd Benchnafa, Laurent Stocker, Catherine Lascault, Thierry de Carbonnières.
Dir Emmanuel Courcol, Pro Marc Bordure and Robert Guédiguian, Screenplay Emmanuel Courcol, from a story by Jan Jönson adapted by Emmanuel Courcol and Thierry de Carbinnières, Ph Yann Maritaud, Pro Des Rafael Mathé, Ed Guerric Catala, Music Fred Avril, Costumes Christel Birot.
Agat Films & Cie/Les Productions du Ch’timi/Canal+/Ciné+/Cinémage-Studio Soho Distribution.
107 mins. France. 2020. UK Rel: 24 June 2022. Cert. 15.
