Mammuth

After an anti-capitalist action film, we now get a tender proletarian romance about departure, returns, incest and finding a way where everything seems to be over. A wonderfully heavy-weight performance by Gerard Depardieu and a digger named Yolande Moreau. The surrealism of everyday life, graves, zombies, masturbation and working-class philosophy. Kervern and Delepine did it again, and although I didn't leave the movie theatre all that excited, the film warms despite the blizzard. It may lack the explosively radical Louise-Michel core, but it's still kneads like that old machine. A good year. They don't make them like that anymore. Instead, they make 3D storyboards. (01.12.2010)

When looking at Gérard Depardieu's filmography from the last decade, it is necessary to point out that according to all signs, he is suffering from great social deprivation, as he takes practically any offer and has turned from a former cinematic gem and export article into tacky costume jewelry adorning antiquated trinkets. Proof that he has not forgotten how to act and that his film roles are not just a result of a lost gamble is his supporting role as a gangster in Mesrine: Killer Instinct and, above all, his leading role in this film. Mammuth is a meritorious worker in a slaughterhouse who, for ten years, has not protested against any assigned task, and has hardly ever spoken. His thought world is simple and he is grateful for the demanding physical labor that doesn't require him to employ brain cells. He is perfectly taken aback by the fact that he has reached retirement age and his carefully planned simple world suddenly receives a significant blow. With his clumsiness, it is difficult for him to adapt to changes and solve trivial life problems. Even just shopping at the supermarket, he is capable of causing such chaos that the viewer's eardrums tremble for several minutes. It is all the more difficult for Mammuth to handle the arrangements for his old-age pension. He has changed jobs many times and given his aversion to paperwork, it is evident that he is missing a lot of important documents. Under relentless pressure from his wife, he hops onto an ancient motorcycle and the film morphs into a somewhat bizarre road movie about his past, during which he encounters not only a remarkable assortment of former employers but also forgotten family ties. The whole story unfolds in a tragicomic spirit and with a special poetic exaggeration. Just a glance at the hulking figure with the face of a retired boxer after a series of crushing defeats, with long hair and a perpetually bewildered expression, adds a lot of depth to this film. I was a little bothered by the hallucinogenic storyline with Isabelle Adjani, but in any case, it is an amiable human film that, in a few places, exceeds the boundaries of political correctness as perceived by the bourgeois. Overall impression: 80%. (28.11.2010)

I fully agree with the text on the DVD cover. If Mammoth was supposed to be a comedy or perhaps a parody, the involvement of Gérard Depardieu turned it into something completely different. This bizarre road-movie with a main character who looks unpleasant, acts like a redneck and hears the word "Idiot" more often than any doorman hears "Hello" is what it is all about. As Depardieu rides around on that old motorcycle, you feel his sudden and long-sought "retirement" freedom completely, and each encounter with strange people and each of the charming bittersweet memories slowly but surely reveals his sensitive inner self. I liked the film a lot more than the previous work of the Kervern/Delépine duo, I was just sorry to see how similar the two films were. In fact, the introduction was almost identical, the IQ of the central characters the same. I praise the idea to shoot the whole film like a vacation video - the colors are sometimes burnt out, sometimes washed out, the image sometimes too grainy... It’s nice. And there is very good music playing throughout. (10.12.2011)