To appreciate this fiction, you have to have in mind a France proud of its gastronomy. A France capable of inflaming a debate on how to eat. You also have to have a penchant for the grotesque. In this story of a couple of butchers ready to do anything to defend their profession, there is blood, dismembered bodies, cannibalism…
But beware, barbecue is a comedy and it is in the tone of caricature that it takes place. It’s funny — probably more so in Paris — it’s colorful, it’s exaggerated. Director Fabrice Éboué, whose barbecue is the fourth feature film, is a humorist above all. His colorful style, his cheeky touch, who is not afraid to graze the unacceptable, and his sense of repartee also serve him as a screenwriter (here, with Vincent Solignac) and as an actor (here, in the leading role).
Vincent and Sophie, owners of a neighborhood butcher, are a bit like Bonnie and Clyde trash, parachuted into a society polarized not by economic, but cultural issues. They’re not robbing banks, they’re attacking the vegan movement. Their main targets: the most extreme militants who vandalize butcher shops and call their owners murderers. If we don’t see that in Quebec, anti-meat terrorism exists in France.
The couple falls into illegality by accident, by naivety. It is the thirst for revenge that motivates them, but also, it must be said, popular success. The victims sell very well by the kilo, as long as they are presented as unusual “pork from Iran” and not as parts (of) vegans.
There is in this barbecue (a colloquial word for meat, for those wondering) hints ofClockwork Orange or of It happened close to you, with respect to the violence and insolence of the gesture. However, the comic thread, as with the Coen brothers (Fargo), allows you to pass the horror pill. barbecue wants to be general public, unifier, rather than provocative fire.
It is also a “romantic” comedy. To the social crisis, Éboué adds the couple crisis. The parallel is sometimes clumsy (after deviance in butchery, adultery), sometimes happier, when sensuality, the pleasure of the flesh or erogenous parts are staged.
Sophie (Marina Foïs, perfectly terrifying and insensitive), who loves the stories of serial killers that she consumes on TV, is the counterpart of her husband. She thinks and observes, he is the instinctive executioner. He still has a work ethic: he does not touch women or children.
If the point is not in doubt – meat is part of French heritage – the filmmaker opens the door to the idea that we could eat differently. By evoking the complexity of preparing a meal (memorable scene around the table) or the cannibalistic skid (the hunting sequence, another success), he skilfully juggles with the most realistic and the most eccentric of horizons.