These people are drowning in their own distress and try to hold on to something; there are many scenes in which you see the external world still rotating, and they try to keep swimming by pretending. The absurdity is the striking part, as if there were two communications going on. Excellent dialogs "Irreverence is one way to keep misfortune away". Good acting, Montand/Schneider are credible, Valli grandiose.
Great moment of cinema: the dancing monkey and pink dogs are my favourites, and one good scene to remind give stimulus to get out and have a great breath of fresh air.
As soon as one realizes that Romain Gary wrote the original book (Frank did only the adapted scenario) , it all pieces together. Gary was Russian/Latvian migrant, and transcribes here the crushing nostalgia typical of the Slaves who have lost their country and feel eternal sorrow for this loss; they however keep going, because this is what life is about; most of the times pretending things are OK but choosing a few occasions to show up their deep feelings.
