The French have filled the cinemas projecting this luminous ‘feel good movie’ that unites a disabled man and an undertaker
‘Beautiful Minds’ may initially refer to films like ‘Rain Man’ and ‘Untouchable’; As in the first, it brings together two people who are unlikely to end up traveling together. From the blockbuster French comedy he takes the process in which one man brings another man to life. The unusual pair of protagonists of this film that has swept French cinemas and is only surpassed by ‘Spider-Man’ on the weekend of its premiere, is formed by an undertaker and a man with a neuromotor disability.
The first has organized its existence perfectly. He is an efficient professional in his field and always uses the right word for clients who have just lost a loved one. Divorced and childless, his life is his work. His whole world will blow up the day he hits an organic fruit delivery man who dares to drive his tricycle between the cars. Despite walking as if to disarm and speaking proving that he suffers from cerebral palsy, the victim has a wise and vitalistic speech full of quotes from philosophers. Coincidence and curiosity will lead them to embark on a journey together to transport a woman’s body and the ashes of her long-dead son.
The hearse adventure includes an encounter with a bachelorette party hitchhiker, a lovable prostitute, and a funeral with a surprising final plot twist. It sounds like the good vibes of ‘Untouchable’, but ‘Beautiful Minds’ has another not-so-comedic tone, which makes us go from smile to emotion for over an hour and a half. The original French title, ‘Presque’ (almost), gives clues: one of the protagonists is ‘almost’ normal. Bernard Campan and Alexandre Jollien are the directors and actors of the film, which won the Audience Award in the International Premieres section of the last Malaga Festival.
Jollien, a very popular philosopher and writer in France, almost plays himself. Born in Switzerland, he suffered from athetosis which caused neuromotor disabilities from oxygen starvation during childbirth when he strangled himself with the umbilical cord. A priest friend encouraged him as a child to overcome his difficulties with the help of philosophical lectures. In time, he became a writer and popularizer with such bestsellers as ‘The job of being a man’ and ‘The naked Philosopher’. Bernard Campan saw him on television twenty years ago and was fascinated by his speech and communication skills. They became friends and eventually made a movie, despite Jollien’s fear of acting.
“I was deeply moved to hear it; he spoke of a philosophy focused on the interior, on the art of living. I moved heaven and earth to find his phone and got in touch with him,” said Campan in Malaga. The title of the film was chosen by Jollien. “We all struggle to integrate this reality of disabilities. We always condemn the other, build up that reality to our measure, not realizing that the real one is always a little further, a little further back, or a little further to the side.The ‘almost’ reality».
‘Wonderful Minds’ shows without being sobering or didactic how we respond to someone else driven by our prejudices. It’s a feel good movie that isn’t ashamed of it and doesn’t treat the viewer like an idiot. “I’m like Igor, but my wife’s advice helped me a lot when I was dealing with it: she told me to turn it into that universal being that represents vulnerability, stigma and isolation,” says Alexandre Jollien. “That it was the voice of those who don’t have it, despite the fact that in real life, and in the space of a few minutes, you can feel rejected and then meet someone on the street who has been saved by my books” .
Source: La Verdad
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