By James Mackenzie
PARIS (Reuters) -
A feel-good comedy about regional
prejudices and the inhabitants of the rainswept north of France
is poised to become the most successful French film ever,
attracting more than 17 million viewers in less than six weeks.
"Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" (its title is based on a
dialect word for northerners) looks certain this weekend to
break a 41-year record held by the 1966 comedy "La Grande
Vadrouille," according to the film's producers Pathe.
The U.S. melodrama "Titanic" still holds the absolute
record in France, with more than 20 million viewers, but
"Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" has become a phenomenon for the
local industry, which has often struggled to produce home-grown
hits.
"It's astonishing. It's amazing. I can't believe that we
are the number one film of all times," the film's director and
star Danny Boon told TF1 television, anticipating the French
record.
The film pokes fun at stereotypes about the damp and chilly
north, a region blighted by high unemployment and industrial
decline whose inhabitants are often stigmatized in the rest of
France as a backward race of uncouth beer drinkers.
Made for a reported 11 million euros ($17.28 million) by
Boon, a native of the region, it centers on the trials of a
post office manager transferred from an idyllic southern town
to exile in the distant region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
He faces bad weather, incomprehensible local accents and an
unfamiliar diet of fried chips, beer and a pungent local cheese
normally enjoyed dunked in coffee ("It mellows it," he is
assured).
Inevitably, however, he learns to appreciate the loveable
cast of eccentrics he encounters.
Inspired by Boon's observation that most French comedies
are set either in Paris or the sunny south, "Bienvenue chez les
Ch'tis" has transformed the dour image of the north, bringing
flocks of tourists to the town of Bergues where it was made.
Wildly popular among "Ch'tis" themselves, the film has
attracted audiences across the whole country and President
Nicolas Sarkozy is reported to have asked for a special private
screening in the Elysee Palace.
The prejudices that still exist against the region were
underlined by a banner unrolled at a football match last
weekend involving the northern club of Lens, reading
"Paedophiles, unemployed and inbred, Bienvenue chez les
Ch'tis."
But the flood of outraged comment and the massive police
hunt for the opposition supporters behind the taunt has
underlined the effect the film has had.
Its success has also inspired filmmakers in the United
States and Germany to consider a possible remake based on
regional differences in their own countries, a Pathe executive
told Le Monde last month.
"Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" itself looks unlikely to be an
international hit with much of its humor based on accents and
dialect which inevitably get lost in translation.
(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Mary Gabriel)
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