Gérard Brach – Le bateau sur l’herbe AKA The Boat on the Grass (1971)

Quote:
Essentially known as Polanski’s screenwriter (the famous director collaborated for the screenplay here), Gerard Brach made two movies in the early seventies: “La Maison” (feat Michel Simon) and “Le Bateau Sur l’Herbe”. Well acted by Jean-Pierre Cassel, Truffaut’s protégée Claude Jade and British John McEnnery (not dubbed) who manages quite well in French – even if he bestows Hamlet’s monologue on us – and stays very natural when he’s looking for a word or wondering whether “broken mirrors bring bad luck over here too”.

Two boys are building a ship which is supposed to take them to Easter Island; one of them has a girlfriend.

At first, it might look like a mundane love triangle; but further acquaintance shows that there’s more to the picture than meets the eye.

The boys come from very different classes: David is a prole whereas oliver lives in a desirable mansion, with a chic mother (Valentina Cortese is unbearable, the only major flaw of this effort); when David asks him to declare him, for he is his employee, terse answer: “it’s for poor people “; David is ill-at-ease during the party with Oliver’s mother’s friends.

Brach creates a strange atmosphere with his ship on the lawn, and its almost disturbing figurehead, particularly when he films it at night. And something bizarre is in the air: don’t we learn that Oliver’s father committed suicide because of his mother? There are many details which foreshadow the final tragedy.

1.39GB | 1h 30m | 732×458 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/1E9BC9143D1F5E0/Gerard_Brach_-_Le_bateau_sur_l’herbe_aka_The_Boat_on_the_Grass_(1971).mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English, French (transcript, other languages not translated), French hardsubs (for English parts)