Like a Son

La tortue sur le dos / Like a Turtle on Its Back - by Luc Béraud (1978)

Paul, écrivain qui a connu son moment de notoriété il y a six ans de cela pour son livre Portrait des lieux, est en crise. Ne parvenant ni à écrire malgré son bon vouloir, ni à satisfaire physiquement sa femme Camille qui a abandonné ses études afin d'entretenir le ménage, il décide, devant l'angoisse de la page blanche, de modifier sa vie. Tout en continuant à se faire « materner » par Camille, Paul sort de chez lui, drague les étudiantes dans les cafés, se fait vamper par une ouvreuse de cinéma, se met à fréquenter les thés dansants.

French stage actor Louis Ducreux makes his film debut as a 76-year-old traditionalist painter, Monsieur Ladmiral, in this bittersweet portrait of a brooding artist. A widower, Ladmiral lives on an estate in the countryside near Paris with only his housekeeper, Mercedes (Monique Chaumette), and his paintings to keep him company. The action of the film takes place on a bright autumn Sunday in the early 1900s when Ladmiral's son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and Gonzague's wife, Marie-Therese (Genevieve Mnich), come out from Paris with their three children to visit the old man. While making small talk with Gonzague, Ladmiral hints ever so subtly that his son has become too bourgeois, too conformist, too accepting of the status quo. Apparently, Ladmiral doesn't want his son to face what he is facing: self-recrimination for failing to take risks, failing to go beyond the bounds of tradition.