Blunt and charming, this French film about cheese-making is filled with pride
(M) 92 minutes
The Franche-Comté region of France, near the Swiss border, is famed for its wheels of cheese, made by farmers who follow traditional methods – if you want to get into this business, you'd better be prepared to plunge your forearm into a copper boiler filled with scaldingly hot milk – and who have to meet an especially strict set of standards before they're allowed to use the Comté name.
All this is laid out for us in Holy Cow, a first feature from writer-director Louise Courvoisier, who grew up in the region before leaving to attend film school. In one key moment, a cheese connoisseur samples a wedge and proclaims it's inedible for the moment and needs time to mature.
There is, I'm afraid, a rather heavy-handed metaphor here. Listening in on the exchange is Totone (Clément Favreau), the film's 18-year-old hero, who has good intentions but is still going through a maturing process of his own.
Visibly still more boy than man, he's forced to grow up especially fast after the sudden death of his father, which leaves him as the sole guardian of his young sister (Luna Garret).
As a representative of French culture, Courvoisier has her own set of standards to maintain, seeking to combine a degree of raw realism with the kind of quaint charm that could appeal to tourists.
There's an element of literal documentary in her approach, not just in the depiction of the cheese-making process but in scenes like one which shows the birth of a calf, and more generally in her use of non-professional actors whose awkwardness is part of their appeal.
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