1976 ‘Le Plein de Super’ Directed by Alain Cavalier
When a young auto salesman is forced to give up a vacation with his wife in order to drive a big American car to its new owner who lives on the Riviera, he makes the best of things. First, he gets and old friend to ride along with him. Then, the two of them are joined by another pair of men who want to ride south.
加满高级汽油
FranceTP
France
"Fill 'er Up with Super" is a 1976 French road movie directed by Alain Cavalier. The narrative of the film follows a grouping of four men as they are traveling on a smaller road trip through France. Each of the four have their own individualized reasoning for traveling, and uniquely they are somewhat grouped in two groups of two as far as knowing each other before the events of the film unfold. Additionally, really when looking at the film and its connections with story structure and "events", its really a minimalistic approach as not much really occurs. That is by design, as the film is more of a time capsule of our presented characters varied mentalities and how a road…
I’m going to chicken out here and spare you the discourse I’d begun composing in defense of the virtues of male bonding. In a world ravaged by toxic masculinity, it’s just not a hill I care to die on. Or even amble up, really. Suffice to say, it is a ritual rooted in primal excess, coarse and lewd at times, but in my own experience, punctuated with moments of tenderness and poignancy.
Fill ‘er Up with Super distills that experience - warts and all - into one of the most honest and impenitent depictions of the male psyche I’ve seen in a film. Just four men on the open road in a wood-panelled station wagon. Four men musing on sex, drugs, love, and loss. A French Fandango.
It is coarse and lewd, tender and poignant.
It is ugly.
It is beautiful.
It is true.
(A big, manly hug to Jamerlich for providing the road map to this one.)
feels reductive to label this as the French version of Two Lane Blacktop but it’s largely apt in its on screen relationships, both between man and machine and man and man, arguably much more delicate (and, surprisingly, crass) than Monte Hellman’s fittingly rugged tour of early 70s America, but the way it romanticizes the journey and the camaraderie (which has plenty of performative and competitive aspects as well) is hard to dismiss — like the best road movies, the destination is largely inconsequential, a narrative excuse to put these characters together for a period of time and subject us to their whims, conversations, protests and embraces — special mention should be made for Fifi, a leashed cat at a gas station with the temperament of a lion that may steal the movie in 30 seconds of screen time
One of the most authentic cinematic depictions of male bonding, Fill 'er Up with Super (le plain de super) hits the road and leaves Cassavettes Husbands for dust.
Director Alain Cavalier takes the American road movie (complete with Chevrolet Station wagon) and gives it a uniquely Gallic flair. As befits the American genre convention, It's a masculine movie, a film with very little women in it, yet women loom large in the film. Our four male protagonists are each either hurt by or struggling in their relationships with women, and/or they are talking about women, talking about sex. The puerile, crude and scatological discourse between the characters rings true of how men converse with one another in a way that…
A plot that sounds like a propulsive thriller – a put upon car salesman is dragged away from a family holiday to deliver an American car to its owner with a tight timescale and a friend in tow soon pick up two strangers en route… - soon gives way to a strange, almost meditative look at masculinity via a woozy set of vignettes that occur to the foursome as they simply travel the French countryside.
With each of the men struggling with a facet of what it meant to be a man in the mid-70s – one is infertile, one is questioning his sexuality, one doesn’t see his young son and the final one simply has lost a girlfriend to…
This is a suprisingly unknown (because good) french roadmovie dealing primarily with masculinity habits and issues. Prominently sticking out are the four stubborn characters traveling in an american car from northern to southern France. All of them tend to be idiots and loosers in their own manners but they grow together during the ride. It's this kind of understanding between the four, that arise while they are converging to their destination, that's the whole fascination of a roadmovie. You should expect a bunch of macho behaviour but it's a jolly watch.
Comedy / Drama / Road movie from Alain Cavalier. A car salesman is required to cancel his planned holiday, in order to drive a large American car through France to its demanding new owners on a timescale. He takes his friend with him, and the pair are soon joined by two other men. Unique, minimal, meditative, frank, funny, crass and surprising. Very much a story of masculinity, maturity and bonding. The characters are interesting, and they each have their own reasons for travelling. The quartet bicker, they are childish, they are stubborn, they find themselves in silly situations as a consequence of their actions, and their exchanges are bawdy. The end point is fairly inconsequential - it’s all about the journey, and it’s an enjoyable ride for the most part. Grow up, act your age.
Radiance Films release viewed.
In the 70s with second wave feminist themes gaining traction in art house and mainstream movies alike it was inevitable that male directors would look to interrogate machismo among groups of male characters. The approach and tone was all over the map from backlash and celebration to self-reflection and apologetic guilt. French director Bertrand Blier had a virtual cottage industry with his darkly satiric provocative trilogy of sorts Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Going Places (with a French title that essentially translates as “Testicles”) and, most controversially, Calmos. Fellow Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet ups the ante even further with his befuddling fourth wall breaking Playing With Fire. Other directors took the mid-life crisis navel gazing approach like Sidney Lumet with Bye Bye…
A relaxed French road trip comedy with some strange textures. We got 4 guys driving the length of France in a wood-paneled station wagon which everyone thinks is the fanciest car they’ve ever seen. I’m not saying it’s not a great car but the dickhead millionaire owner seems to think it’s a Rolls Royce.
Speaking of Rolls Royce, there’s a lot of pretty overt class discussion embedded In this. Klouk, middle management at a car lot is a straight arrow with designs on upward mobility. Phillipe is a pansexual singer who seems to know everyone in France?
[ Phillipe is the standout character to me and I really have a lot of questions about his character which will remain unanswered…
French director Alain Cavalier's meditation on friendship and masculinity is a freewheeling ride across the length of France from Lille to the Cote d'Azur.
Come along for the ride with Radiance Films and ARROW.
Klouk (Bernard Crombey) is a car salesman who has to miss a family holiday to deliver a luxury Chevrolet station wagon to his boss' wealthy client. He decides to take his friend Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary) along with him for the ride across the length of France from Lille to the Cote d'Azur. On the way they give a lift to hitchhiker Charles (Etienne Chicot) who also brings along his friend Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey). A buddy road movie that came together from genuine friendship developed throughout the months-long script workshop giving the film a casual and naturalistic quality that pre-dates Richard Linklater's similar approaches by some decades. A meditation on friendship and masculinity, this was one of the last films Alain Cavalier made before approaching more experimental forms of filmmaking but prefigures his later breaking down of fiction and documentary barriers with the freewheeling approach of Fill ‘er up with Super .
On Blu-ray from Radiance Films: www.radiancefilms.co.uk/products/fill-er-up-with-super
I feel like this would be a wonderful triple feature with Y tu mamá también and IL Sorpasso. It's got so much charm that it has to keep going. Spectacular job, Radiance!
