Remue-Ménage

Pascal looks for the pair of tights that suit him best, thenapplies his make-up, with the helpful advice of his wife Carole.Between moments of intimacy and scenes from everyday life,Fernand Melgar follows over the period of a year the life of acouple fighting the way other people regard them. Pascal doesnot hide his need to dress up like a woman; he is at one andthe same time an affectionate family man and a woman,dreaming of sequins and the music hall. In a continual battle,this ménage à trois struggles to assert its identity, coming upagainst attacks from the family and jeers from the inhabitants ofthe village.
From the birth of their last child up until his first birthday, thefilm is well and truly the construction of a bringing into theworld; a painful delivery. The sequences, always meaningful,follow each other in a fluid account; dialogues and everydaygestures underline little victories and big disappointments.Childhood photographs, a television programme or a newspaperarticle: the representation of self is at the heart of the problem.A succession of mirror effects, where one is looking for oneselfor confronting one's own image and the mask one wears.Mirror for shaving or mirror for making up. In Remue-ménage,the impartial eye of the camera shows up ambiguities, little bylittle brings questions to light. Interrogations that remain openwhen finally the carnival arrives, just at the moment when,ironically, all the roles are reversed.
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