Mischka

Mischka, the third part of the trilogy, filmed 16 years after Double messieurs, most explicitly explores what could be called the family penchant of Stévenin’s filmmaking. The cast is obvious proof, for it includes all the members of his “gang”: his wife Claire, their children, his friends, and his idol (Johnny Hallyday). But also and because the screenplay makes three characters that revolve around grandfather Mischka (larger than life: Jean-Paul Roussillon) crash against each other: Gégène (Jean-François Stévenin), stranded in a hospice like a factotum, Jane (Salomé Stévenin), a runaway teenager, accompanied by her little brother in search of his father, Joli Coeur, an old singing gypsy. Not surprisingly, what separates this small universe will bring them together. Much better than a comedy where everybody flees their place in order to find it, it is the sum of these fleeting moments that add up to an uproar where everybody tries to find a way and a person to adopt their love even though nobody wants it. (Viennale)