Credits

subject:

Henri Cueco

screenplay:

Jean Becker, Jean Cosmos, Jacques Monnet

direction:

Jean Becker

produced by:

Louis Becker per Ice3, K.J.B. Production, Studio Canal, Fr2, Rhône-Alpes Cinéma, Canal+, Ciné Cinémas, Cnc

distributed by:

Bim

Italian dialogues:

Federica De Paolis

dubbing direction:

Giulio Doni

editing society:

Diadema Service

sound:

Pcm Audio

Voices:

Jean-Pierre Darroussin

Franco Zucca

Daniel Auteuil:

Luca Biagini

Alexia Barlier:

Barbara De Bortoli

Fanny Cottençon:

Alessandra Korompay

Hiam Abbass:

Anna Rita Pasanisi

Italian dialogue				3
Dubbing direction				1,5

Conversations with my gardener
France 2007

Daniel Auteil, an artist in full crisis, goes back to live in his inherited house in the countryside and there, meets once again Jean-Pierre Darroussin, an old school friend whom he hires as a gardener. From here up to the emotional and slightly expected ending the film is an uninterrupted and verbal confrontation (the ”conversations” in the title) between two opposite points of view on life and the world: the middle-class, disenchanted one of the city-dweller and the simple, concrete one of the countryman. It's precisely due to the wordiness of these conversations which goes from commonplace beliefs to the obvious, that the film doesn't really manage to take off, and Daniel Auteil is an accomplice to all this and almost ill at ease in his role.

As far as the dubbing is concerned, Luca Biagini is unconvincing: his is an out-of-touch Daniel Auteil, almost as though not directed at all (en passant, in the dialogue with his future ex-wife, always out of sync, the two call a certain Irène he Irene and she Iren... miracles of separate column dubbing). Franco Zucca is better in the role of the gardener to whom he manages to give, at least, a direct tone of a certain candour.

The dialogues, as in the original script, are slightly obvious but Federica De Paolis is clever in building diverse linguistic registrars of two such distant worlds. Two mysteries remain unsolved, that of the double meaning of the brush gag at the beginning of the film which one presumes but doesn't really acknowledge and that of the plausibility of using the expression “i fratelli Rischiatutto” (the Risktaking Brothers), because – unless the italic format is known all over France (but almost certainly not with that title and in any case it's legitimate to suspect that Michèl Bongiornò would have been sent back at the border) – the confused spectator is led to think that the two spent their childhood in Mondovì or perhaps Cassano d’Adda.

[original review in Italian by Giovanni Rampazzo]