Best movie of this year hands down!

Touches You

Simply A Masterpiece

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Octave, the creative talent of the advertising agency Ross & Witchcraft, spends most of the time in a drug induced fog. It is a miracle he can produce all those award winning commercials that everyone adore. If the unsuspecting viewers would only know how they are being manipulated into buying those products, they would be horrified. The makers of all those products seen in all the media, want to make a lot of money by saturating those 'captive' audiences sitting in front of their television sets, or reading a newspaper or magazine.As we come into the story, Octave is in the process of committing suicide. We watch in horror as he throws himself from the high rise in which he works, landing on a parked car. But this incident can be deceiving, as we get to learn. Octave's agency has been hired by the makers of "Starlight" a new lite yogurt to work on the concept that will generate the campaign for this product. When he comes out with an idea that is not what the dairy maker envisioned, he decides to go for a more palatable solution: he'll make a prostitute the star of the spots! That'll be his revenge!"99 francs", conceived and directed by Jan Kounen has a lot of great ideas going for it. The style which the director uses will appeal to the younger audiences that are probably targeted because they will see the silliness of the advertising world. At the end of the film we are told a lot of money goes yearly into this industry that create a false sense about things we don't really need, specially how the food industry wants us to eat exactly what will harm us.The film is worth a look because of Jean Dujardin's work. The actor is perfect in his portrayal of the guru that is paid obscene amounts of money just to anticipate what we, as humans, would buy in the future. Jocelin Quivrin plays his co-creator, Charlie. Vahina Giocante makes an impression with her Sophie. Elsa Tovati plays Tamara, the star of the commercials.

99 Francs is French filmmaker Jan Kounen's critique of consumer culture, based on the book of the same title by Frédéric Beigbeder. After 1 hour and 40 minutes of slick film-making, replete with ironic references to famous ad campaigns, beautiful people and lots of sex and drugs and rock & roll, the movie ends with a meek call to action stating that with a mere fraction of the money spent on advertising each year, we could put an end to world hunger. This astonishingly lame ending undermines any value the movie might have had.I suppose the altruistic blurb at the end of the movie is the kind of palliative the filmmakers needed to include in order to convince themselves that their movie has a higher moral purpose. The question is, why do they even bother? In reality, it is just a story about a narcissistic, self-loathing fashion victim who sees the error of his ways. The great irony, of course, is that had they spent all their time and money on charitable projects instead of making this movie, they could have contributed much more to ending world hunger.Himself an ex-creative adviser for an ad agency, Beigbeder wrote 99 Francs under the encouragement of another famous French author, Michel Houellebecq. Octavo, the main character, hoovers cocaine in rails forming the numbers 666, pops whatever pills he can get his hands on, screws hookers, drives under the influence, and , in his spare time, works for France's most powerful ad agency as a creative adviser. After a drug-fueled escapade in which several people might have been hurt, he decides to redeem himself. The movie offers two endings - one happy, one sad - and they both have him renouncing his consumerist lifestyle: one treats him as a Christ-like martyr, the other has him living out a Rousseauian back-to-nature fantasy on an island. Grade school stuff, I know, but not so awful as it sounds.In the adept hands of Jan Kounen, the movie is visually-engaging, rhythmic, and yes, entertaining. The problem is the story. Just like the book, the overall feeling is one of disingenuousness. Remember the scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden goes on about the superficiality of our consumer lifestyle? "You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f***ing khakis." Somehow, a hot-$hit guy dressed in fashionable clothes isn't the most convincing of anti-consumerism preachers. That's kind of what happens in 99 Francs.Even with the main character's redemption, 99 Francs gives the impression that it is more intent on looking cool than trying to open people's eyes to the evils of consumerism. Basically, Jan Kounen and Frédéric Beigbeder deliver us the cinematic equivalent of putting a "Stop Global Warming" bumper sticker on a gas-guzzling Hummer.

Watching this film will give some critical ideas about consumerism, dirty ideas of ad business, also lifestyle of people working in advertising business in France. The ideas are different from all full of humor American TV series about advertisers (e.g. "I Dream of Jeannie" and others). The ideas are different, though there are many elements of black humor, criticism of machos' vices, The critical idea is the didactic message of the film. The film reminds that people would not die of hunger if more money are spent not for creating ads to increase turnover, also true critical insights about consumerism, the idea that advertising in many cases sell only dreams for some time.The plot of the film is also full of visual experiments, some elements of animated cartoons, some repeated episodes which get more meaning at the end of the movie. Also the end of the film obviously make the viewer think more deeply about the nature of the change of the human being discarding commercial things.It is worth to spend time watching this French film full of experiments and critical ideas about consumerism.The book of Begbeider and the film are truly two different things, which add more ideas about critical insights about consumerism, advertising business.

The first question that comes to mind when you ear about this project is : what the hell is Jan Kounen doing as a director of such a movie ? Jan Kounen was a french talented and trendy director of the 90's, just as his friend Matthieu Kassovitz. He released "Doberman" when Kasso brought "La Haine" on french screens. But after this violent/cartoon movie, Jan Kounen had discovered Shamanism while directing his experimental trip out of (the blues) "Blueberry" and then made a documentary about inner journey and other substantial trips. "99 Francs", on the other hand is an auto-fiction by the french intellectual bobo Beigbeider, that narrates his experience as a publicist in a satirical and fashionable style. So, my question was : what's the link between this director and this book and what the hell is Jan Kounen doing as a director of such a movie ?First, from a factual point of view, Kounen and the main and incredibly credible actor of the movie, Jean Dujardin, have them-self been publicists, and decided to take the book as a starting point, and to go on completely different directions. Beigbeder, who appears several times in the movie, agreed to this betrayal. But this critic of the advertising world isn't the best part of the movie, and only seems to be a support for more experimental journey that only drugs can give.The character of the movie inhales himself several time a gargantuesque quantity of cocaine, unknown pills and other drugs, that makes him have gigantic visions that the movie emphases. A large parts of the movie is just a description of absurd visions, that links the cartoon and trash violence of "Doberman" with the experimental form of "Bluebberry" in the funny and cool package of a critic of advertising and a large public comedy. The best part of "99 Francs" is to me an improbable escape to the tropical forest of "Bluebberry", with Jan 'Pydjhaman' Kounen like guide. If Yan Kounen defines is movie as the "Yogourt Fight Club", the film is also near from Gilliam's more experimental and crazy works.