A caravan enclosed in a hangar in the middle of a city houses a bearded colossus. The caravan provides the setting for a procession of guests and confessions of love and friends, young and old, meals and parties, hazy discussions and horrific rituals. As a series of tableaux, this first film by director Jean-Christophe Meurisse, known for his theatre work with his company Les Chiens de Navarre, is not an imposture. It is close to the world of Tod Browning’s Freaks, to which the huis-clos decor and the title (the famous, terrible and conclusive “She is one of us”) are undoubtedly an allusion, and is about raising elongated epiphanies. And raising a laugh too (although maybe a hollow one) in an atmosphere that is always offbeat and insituable, as if this derisory Utopia can never escape the surrounding threat it refuses to frequent. It is a Bunuellian portrait (recycling many motifs, from The Exterminating Angel to the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) of a petite bourgeoisie that we have all become, and which forces us to climb aboard this caravan of stationary trips.
Jean-Pierre Rehm
