THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
Like Elie Semoun, who seems to want to say goodbye and clear the accounts with his elderly father suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (My pal), Gad Elmaleh – also a comedian, also famous, also a Sephardic Jew – in turn takes his parents on a film adventure. Of a completely different nature, Stay a bit takes us into the quicksand of an uncertain aesthetic zone, between autobiography, autofiction and mockumentary (“mockumentary”). Subject: Gad Elmaleh returns to France after his stay in the United States, arrives at his parents’ house with his suitcase, secretly prepares his conversion to Catholicism and does not know how to tell them the news.
We see, in the case of such a canvas, to what degree of explosiveness a Woody Allen, or even a Nanni Moretti, would have led him, if the idea had occurred to him to convert to Judaism (we put the copyright, at the case). There is nothing here. Not that the film is devoid of humor. The return of the 50-year-old to mum and dad who prepared his child’s room for him. The clandestinity of his spiritual journey as a catechumen. The horrified discovery of the pot of roses by the mother, who finds a statue of her rival (Marie) in her son’s suitcase. The counter-offensive carried out with the help of Gad’s sister and a pop rabbi. So many elements that contribute to the entertainment provided by this film, smoothly and tenderly conducted.
We think we can say, however, that the philosophical part of the project is closer to the heart of its author. Without being able to determine with precision the part of documentary authenticity of the “path” followed by Gad Elmaleh, one feels a strong intimate implication. There is no need, in this regard, to be aware of the social chronicle of Gad Elmaleh, who, from the baptism of his youngest son to his trip to Lourdes, has been buzzing for several years with signs attesting to a possible conversion .
Dizziness of fame
And it is perhaps of this alone, finally, that this film intends to speak, debating a question that the comedian has perhaps not yet finished resolving for himself, on the edge of a passage to which the film, playing its fictional score at the same time, brings a conclusion of which we ignore the index of reality. At least it describes the main stages of a process. The illumination felt, as a child, in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, during a sacrilegious incursion into a church in Casablanca, and the feeling that she immediately brought him protection. The examples provided by these great converts that were Simone Weil or Jean-Marie Lustiger. Fruitful dialogue with Catholic circles, respectful of his Jewishness. Loyalty preserved to the Jewish being even in this path which leads him to a renewed faith. All this inspires, on the intellectual level, the greatest respect, but in truth explains rather poorly the need for the uprooting which determined this movement, whose induced violence is largely understated by the film.
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