*« - Keskecé k’un homosessuel?
** - C’est un homme qui met des bloudjins
*- Tu me racontes des blagues! »
In the same way
Rebel Without a Cause paved the way for cinematic teenage rebellion in 1955,
Zazie dans le Métro gave us one of the most unforgettable blueprints for loud-mouthed, unapologetic feminine chaos.
This film is a wildly successful adaptation of Raymond Queneau’s novel : a surreal, absurd, and hilarious French classic that every child in France has been forced to read in middle school (and rightfully so). This book shaped me—as a writer, and before that, as a loud-mouthed
very apologetic Parisian kid.
I can’t even imagine how any translation could do it justice. The wordplay, the rhythm, the insolence—it’s all so specifically, beautifully and
awfully French! It just makes me so proud :’)
This film is a whirlwind. A riot of language, of movement, of nonsense, of…truth! A perfect expression of French surrealism and working-class wit… And watching this reminded me why I can never leave Paris.