May Fools

Directed by Louis Malle, this 1990 French-Italian production is a bittersweet family comedy set against the upheaval of May 1968. Milou lives quietly with his elderly mother in the family's country home in southwestern France. Her sudden death draws the whole extended family back to the estate for the funeral, including Camille and her relatives, and Claire with her lover. Because strikes and protests paralyze the country, the burial cannot take place, and the family finds itself stuck together with an unburied body. Old tensions quickly resurface: Milou dreams of staying on the land, while the others would rather sell the house and divide the inheritance. Around the question of who gets what, Malle stages marital frustrations, greed and hesitant experiments with sexual freedom, turning the family estate into an ironic allegory of France itself during the 1968 crisis. The cast includes Michel Piccoli, Miou-Miou, Michel Duchaussoy and Dominique Blanc; Malle co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Claude Carrière.