Pierre Étaix and Jean-Claude Carrière | Heureux Anniversaire (Happy Anniversary) / 1962, USA 1963

the beheaded sunflower

by Douglas Messerli

 

Pierre Étaix and Jean-Claude Carrière (screenwriters and directors) Heureux Anniversaire (Happy Anniversary) / 1962, USA 1963

 

On November 16, 2011, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented an evening of two films, a short and feature, by the French director Pierre Étaix, a man little known in the US because his films were, for many years, tied up in copyright issues which also resulted in their deterioration. Through the help of several organizations, particularly the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage and Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema, this director’s films have been restored and will be released next year by Criterion on DVD. But it was a special treat to see two of them at the Academy’s widescreen Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

     The first of these “The Laughter Returns” films was Étaix’s 1962 black and white short (15 minutes) Heureux Anniversaire, which flawlessly reveals Étaix’s roots in the circus, as well as his major cinematic influences, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Jacques Tati, with whom he worked on Mon Oncle.

 

    This movie, which won the 1963 Academy Award for short films, is a kind of road picture—in which no one goes anywhere. The earliest frames reveal a loving wife, La femme (Laurence Lignières) setting a formal table, hiding a gift within the napery and preparing a beautiful meal for her husband: it is, quite clearly, a special occasion, and when, soon after we see Le mari (Étaix) with a wrapped package and champagne, we recognize that is a shared holiday, in fact an anniversary. When the husband attempts to drive away from the shop where he has purchased the gift, cars have locked him in. He honks one of the cars horns, and a man, mid-shave, exits from the barber, politely moving the car so that the implacable Étaix can exit.

     One major difference from Étaix’s films from other comic works of its time, is that it seldom focuses on only one figure. For this poor man, whose space is immediately overtaken by another automobile, is forced for the rest of the film to circle the block, shouting out to the barber over and over that he will be right back.

    The happy husband, meanwhile, trapped in a traffic jam which the writers mock by showing various drivers engaged in every kind of activity—except driving—imaginable, from reading, playing games, dining, etc.

     When traffic finally loosens a bit, our hero decides to stop by a flower shop. This time, he enters a narrow space, which, when he returns, permits him no entry into his car. For a few seconds, he even contemplates crawling through others to get to his own, but it is to no avail, and other trapped drivers berate him for the situation.

   Meanwhile, the wife, patiently waiting at home, is growing tired, bored, certainly impatient, as she nibbles at a salad, nips a bit the wine.

     The flowers are crushed by the time hero is on his way again. Another visit to a shop, where he buys a ridiculous sunflower, ultimately ends with similar results: the flower is beheaded. By the time the poor man reaches his apartment door, the wife, having finished off the bottle and eaten much of the food, has fallen into a kind of drunken stupor, her had lying upon the dinner table. Le mari gently kisses her and rattles the little package she has hidden the napkins folds. He shall have to spend the night alone. Such is married life in the 20th century urban world.

 

Los Angeles, November 17, 2011

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2011).