When I was a child I saw this movie on TV. Right from the start I was fascinatedand and had to laugh, sometimes hysterically. There was Louis de Funes which I adored at that time. He looked older and you could see that he had health issues. Nevertheless his performance was as good as always. His hyper nervous fast-talking acting style was more nervous and faster-talking than ever. The story is quite simple: Two dirty old men (Claude and Francis, latter called the "hunchback") that are neighbors get drunk every night while they eat cabbage soup, talk about past days and perform fart contests. One evening after farting louder and longer than ever a thunderstorm starts quite abprupt. The old crocks think that God advises them to stop farting immediately and they flee in their houses but the thunderstorm was not from god. The following night an alien (a simple guy in a ridiculous space-suit) lands with his flying saucer and tells (in his own very special language) that he took the farts as a try to establish communication. Claude offers the visitor a bowl of his homemade cabbage soup and gives him some to take back to his planet. Because the soup is very well received there the alien regularly comes back to collect more soup. That means a lot of trouble for the two friends.
Of course the movie is from the early 80s what you recognize immediately. The score is made by synthesizer and sounds quite cheesy sometimes. Nevertheless it is made by French composer and movie-score-legend Raymond Lefevre. I'm convinced that the music if played by orchestra would have been epic. The story is quite vulgar and simple but the style in which it is realised is so heartwarming and loving that you don't care. The fart scenes are the most exaggerated I've ever seen (and heard). This movie is THE one and only farting movie for me. Doesn't matter if you like that kind of humour. This scenes wrest even from the most serious person a grin. But there are some emotional scenes too some of them so well done that you feel your eyes get wet. Besides all the fart-jokes it's about getting old and coping with modern society. Even if this is not the best flick of Louis de Funes it is a good one and the one that burns into your mind forever. It's the most heartwarming one too. There's no chance of making a mistake watching it.
Review of The Cabbage Soup
