March 01, 2006
pink panther
Having promised to make a brief note about each new release we see this year, we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to say something or other about the latest remake of The Pink Panther, starring Steve Martin, whom we once found funny.
We don't remember the earlier rounds so well, but it seems in retrospect that the possible interest of the set-up — which seems on the verge of appearing at various moments in this iteration — lies in the fact that it's Clouseau's very idiot provinciality which makes him a successful sleuth. It's not that his bumbling turns out to be a virtue, but that it's symptomatic of the general lack of intelligence and grace on the part of French civil servants, who exist within a vast cocoon of pleasure in bureaucracy [surely there's a French or German word for this? ed.]...and this is finally the virtue. This seems like the plot that's trying to creep through; Clouseau's successes periodically seem to come from his knowledge of arcane and absurd civil codes and para-facts, things only a talentless grind might know. It's not that Clouseau's innate goodness will be redeemed, but that Clouseau will redeem the concept of bureaucracy itself. In this regard the narrative-in-waiting can be regarded indeed as a French nationalist tale, the very antipode of the American nationalist police story, which revolves dependably around the idea that only a rogue cop with disregard for the regulations can save us now, because regulation is what interferes with actual genius and the solving of problems.
And yet in this edition the idea is botched at almost every turn, periodically pillorying top cop Dreyfus for his own bureaucratic ways, when it should be doing the exact opposite, and brutally misusing the Clive Owens cameo, which ought to have been an instance of how the physically-talented and charismatic Bond style of crimefighting finally fails within this national context.
Is the inability to execute the one possibly workable idea explained by the production team's non-Frenchness — or just their astounding insipidity?
Posted by jane at March 1, 2006 08:44 AM | TrackBack