LES CONVOYEURS ATTENDENT (The Carriers are Waiting, 1999) **1/2 In which Benoît Mariage endeavors to answer the age old question, "Why do fathers have to be such assholes?" He demonstrates the problem, better than answers the question, both aspects of which, taking place in Belgium, appear to have something to do with awkwardness. Mariage runs his big metaphors visually beautifully and obvious, thus engaged we are expected to do most of the difficult work ourselves. Of course he has already done his share of the difficult work: encapsulating the highs and low of a lifetime in a 93 minute film covering a time frame of perhaps 10 months. The highs aren't so much high as very funny for the most part, the lows are truely abysmal, with occasional spotty areas in between. Is it an indictment, or primer for (Berenstain Bear-like, "This is what you should not do") fatherhood? Desperado dad hires a personal trainer to drive his son to establish a Guinness world record for door closing (yes, there is a benefit directly to dad), young daughter turns to sympathetic neighbor who makes his living by immersing pigeons in jealous rages...social commentaries abound and it is made clear that father's don't go insane entirely because society is itself a sensible milieu. It is in fact a milieu that, including fathers, has deadened most men to the extent of the joys and pains of the world by the time that they reach the age where they are able to start a family, and thereby reek their revenge. In realizing such a grandiose construct in an immutable rural setting Mariage is assisted by two performances that are excellent for entirely different reasons: Benoît Poelvoorde communicates the subtleties of the dullest of man's basest instincts without employing more than a facial muscle or two; and Morgan Simon, at the age where most of us are trying to apprehend the concept of primary colours, has achieved monumental stage presence to complement her innate grace.
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