Le chêne d'Allouville

1981
1h 30m

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In the small town of Allouville,a lot of tourists arrive to see the old oak (1300 year-old).But a Député wants the road to be widened :it means that the roots of the tree have to be cut .The... Read allIn the small town of Allouville,a lot of tourists arrive to see the old oak (1300 year-old).But a Député wants the road to be widened :it means that the roots of the tree have to be cut .The mayor supports the politician who has promised him the Legion D'Honneur .But the mayor's ... Read allIn the small town of Allouville,a lot of tourists arrive to see the old oak (1300 year-old).But a Député wants the road to be widened :it means that the roots of the tree have to be cut .The mayor supports the politician who has promised him the Legion D'Honneur .But the mayor's daughter,who does not want to marry the gay Député and the vicar rebel against this ominou... Read all

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4.2/10

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2/10

Is this the place where Joan of arc heard her heavenly voices?

This is the second effort by Serge Pénard ;the first one was hopeless:his " Tendrement Vache" told a cock-and-bull story:Henri Duchemin has just lost his good wife,Mary,and he is inconsolable ;after watching a TV broadcast about reincarnation,he does believe that the dead woman is reincarnated as a cow...You read well!

"Le Chêne D'Allouville " (alternate title : "Ils Sont Fous Ces Normands" ,a nod to Asterix )gets off to a most auspicious start: the 1300-year-old oak tree ,the village's pride ,is in jeopardy: its root would have to be cut ,to widen the road ,because of the wheel- and- deal of an unscrupulous greedy (and gay) Député and a mayor at his beck and call ,because he has promised him the Legion D'Honneur.

The treatment is awful,the script is appalling and the actors ham it up shamelessly ;the mayor/vicar rivalry may remind you of a poor man's Don Camillo and Peppone (Duvivier's fifties comedy);all the characters from the politically correct daughter to the journalist are cardboard;the love story is abysmal (and enhanced ,so to speak, by a syrupy score),and an unfriendly look at gays only makes the matter worse.The inhabitants/riot police fights are repetitive and sound like a very bad spoof on those movies-with-demonstration which thrived in the wake of the events of May 68.

This venerable tree did deserve better than this coarse slapstick.