A l'attaque!

This sunny and anarchic protest comedy combines anything-goes whimsy with a steely political irreverence. It's about how ordinary working people can maintain their autonomy, dignity and spirit in the face of the modern world's arbitrary, overwhelming acts of Mammon - both in life and in cinema. Thus the film not only spins a yarn about an extended family of garage mechanics caught between an overdue bank loan and a runaway contractor's bad debt, it also regularly pulls back a creative level to poke fun at the story's altercating screenwriters (actors stand in for Guédiguian and his regular co-writer Milesi) - one intent on writing an uplifting realist fable true to the lives it represents, the other a sucker for the narrative temptations of blow-jobs and firearms. If the main drama fingers capitalist globalisation as a process of divide, deprive and rule, the film's explicit interrogation of art and entertainment values manifests the invigorating idiosyncrasy of homegrown folk and fare.