boblipton
When Marcello Mastroianni is feeling run down, Catherine Deneuve is worried that he is going to die and leave her and their eight-year-old son, so she hectors him into seeing her doctor. It turns out he's pregnant.Jacques Demy's dry satire has an increasingly big-bellied Mastroianni walking around with a befuddled expression, while the world spins slightly out of control around him. Everyone in picture takes the events very calmly and seriously, and everyone is mildly congratulatory towards the expectant father. The few jokes are mild and of the biter-bit variety and, except for the sequence when he gets involved in a campaign of clothing for pregnant men, there isn't much to this trifle.Given the date of its release and the birth of his son, Mathieu, I suspect Demy started writing it when Agnes Varda offered some irritated comments on her pregnancy.
Vonia
A Slightly Pregnant Man (French: "L'Événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune" ("The Most Important Event Since Man Walked on the Moon") (1973) Demy's most frivolous film with moderate humor and sentiment,
Yet what will I really remember as a student of psychology?
That I actually felt physically ill watching what I thought was an impregnated man,
Only to laugh at my own expense when it was all for naught,
Only going to show the wonders of the mind. Gogyohka literally translates to "five-line poem." An alternative to the tanka form, the gogyohka has very simple rules. Five lines with one phrase per line. What comprises a phrase? Eye of the beholder- or the poet, in this case.
#Gogyohka #PoemReview
writers_reign
Given the starting line-up - Jacques Demy, Micheline Presle, Catherine Deneuve, Toni Marshall, Marcello Mastroianni - punters were, I feel, entitled to more than a faux farce that is neither fish nor fowl. A subject like this - man gets pregnant by woman - was meat and drink to Billy Wilder who would have shot the bejeezus out of it, as would his French counterpart Francis Weber, instead it wound up in the (on this occasion) inept hands of Jacques Demy who delivered (sorry) what can only be described as an aborted comedy (sorry, again). Apart from the central one, all sorts of improbabilities punctuate the film, such as successful and busy gynaecologist (Micheline Presle) who thinks nothing (apparently) of deserting her office to accompany Mastroianni and Deneuve to visit a consultant. Adding insult to injury Toni Marshall was on and off screen before you could say 'PUSH'.
MartinHafer
In this French film, Marcello Mastroianni plays a man who is diagnosed as being pregnant! This would explain all of Marcello's aches and pains and swelling! His wife (Catherine Deneuve) seems quite pleased with it and Marcello seems to accept it all rather easily. In fact, that is an odd thing about the film--the public and media also accept it rather easily--perhaps too easily! And, in light of this, it's odd that he wasn't subjected to a huge battery of tests--it's just accepted! The idea of a pregnant man could have been handled in a wide variety of ways--and the rather matter of fact way it was handled here surprised me. This film was NOT handled as slapstick or as an obvious comedy--more like a mildly amusing film and that is all. That, combined with the VERY anti-climactic ending made for a film that was diverting but not especially satisfying--good as a time-passer but with very little to say about gender roles or inequities or comedy. This is a case where a film has an exceptional director (Jacques Demy) and some exceptional actors were hampered by a rather mundane script despite the novel idea (after all, this film came out before "Rabbit Test" and "Junior").
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