The film tells the story of a ménage à trois in which two men share a woman to cure her of an unexplained depression, with many symptoms. Eventually, she begins an affair with an underage boy. The film employs heavy references to historical musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, combined with the music of the film's composer Georges Delerue, who won the César Award for Best Original Music. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs was a critical success.
Plot
Raoul and his wife Solange are eating in a restaurant when Raoul expresses concern with Solange's apparent depression, as she eats little, suffers migraines and insomnia, and also sometimes faints. He finds another man in the room, Stéphane, to be her lover and hopefully enliven her. Stéphane is puzzled by Raoul's plan, but gives in to his desperate appeals for help. The two men take turns sleeping with Solange, and both try to impregnate her without success, believing a lack of a child to be the source of her depression. Stéphane also shares his love for the music of Mozart and Pocket Books with the two and their neighbourhood grocer. The music inspires the men, but not Solange.
Raoul, Solange, and Stéphane work at a boys' camp in the summer, where they meet a 13-year-old math prodigy named Christian Belœil, who is bullied by the other boys. Solange becomes protective of Christian and one night lets him sleep in her bed. She awakes to find Christian exploring her body and scolds him. They make up and have sex, despite the drastic age difference. Afterwards, Solange becomes dependent on the boy, to the point where Raoul, Stéphane, and she kidnap him from his boarding school. Christian eventually impregnates her, and the film ends with Raoul and Stéphane walking away after serving six months in prison.
Director Bertrand Blier wrote the screenplay "from the middle", starting by writing the scene where Raoul and Stéphane fantasize about meeting Mozart.[3] Blier considered using an actor to portray Mozart in a historically-appropriate costume for the scene.[4] Collaborating with the film's composer Georges Delerue, Blier employed Mozart's string chamber music in scenes such as where Stéphane and Solange are first seen in bed, followed by using Mozart's G minor string quintet when Raoul is in the bar with Bernadette.[5] Mention of a conductor named Gervase de Brumer is a reference to Gervase de Peyer.[4]
While writing the script, Blier planned to use actors Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as the leads, having previously worked with them on Going Places (1974). The familiarity meant the men were comfortable together.[2] Blier discovered Riton Liebman, who was 13 years old at the time, and cast him as Christian in the film, where he is credited simply as Riton. While Liebman said he had strained relations with Depardieu and Dewaere, Blier defended him during filming.[6]
In reference to the scene where Carole Laure undresses in front of the kid, Bertrand Blier said: "We were shooting take after take without ever being satisfied. We had the impression that the scene was obscene, vulgar. Everyone was unhappy, from the actors to the stagehands. And then suddenly, on the ninth take, the miracle: a collective relief, the certainty that this time 'it would work'. It was this take that was obviously chosen and it is true that it has a certain grace..."[7]
Release
The film had a total of 1,321,087 admissions in France.[8] It played at the New York Film Festival, where the audience clapped and hissed at the film.[9]
It was a success in the United States, considered a surprise given the taboo subject matter of a woman in a relationship with a minor.[10]Texas Monthly writer George Morris reported it was the most discussed film of the New York festival, because of the perceived sexist portrayal of Carole Laure as a "sex object," expressing surprise the controversy was not in relation to sex with a minor.[11]
Reception
Critical reception
Critics discussed how the film sexually objectified or eroticized French Canadian actress Carole Laure.
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs received generally positive reviews in the United States, with some concerns about sexism.[12]David Denby, writing for New York magazine, praised Get Out Your Handkerchiefs as "courageous and enjoyable" and made in the spirit of the French New Wave.[9] Richard Fuller, writing for Cincinnati, gave it three and a half stars and said it was "a joy to spend time with,"[13] though he objected to Mozart's music being overly loud.[14]Variety wrote that "a rather bizarre mixture of gritty comedy, satire and delving into female status makes this a literary film. There is a lot of talk, sometimes good, but often edgy and too often pointless in lieu of a more robust visual dynamism and life."[15]People wrote the humour could be "downright incomprehensible" and "so airy it floats right off the screen."[16]
Time Out called it "an erratic, often hilarious movie."[17] In his 2002 Movie & Video Guide, Leonard Maltin gives the film three and a half stars and calls it "disarming" and "highly unconventional."[18] Arion Berger writes that "to experience Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is to watch a master at the peak of his powers."[2] According to Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film, French Canadian actress Carole Laure was "permanently eroticized" by Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and her music career, as having "reinvented the screen goddess."[19] An Epinions critic wrote "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is good for some laughs while flaunting somewhat outrageous disregard for standard sexual mores."[20]Get Out Your Handkerchiefs has an approval rating of 83% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10.[21]
Everist, Mark (2012). Mozart's Ghosts: Haunting the Halls of Musical Culture. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0195389173.
Harris, Sue (2001). Bertrand Blier. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. ISBN0719052971.
Lanzoni, Remi Fournier (22 October 2015). French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present (2nd ed.). New York, London, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN978-1501303098.
Maltin, Leonard (2001). Leonard Maltin's 2002 Movie & Video Guide. A Signet Book.
Wise, Wyndham (2001). Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press. ISBN0802083986.
