Holy Cow
Coming of age French film
The trailer advertised a simple story: a young man decides to enter a prestigious cheese competition. The story, together with the scenery and the music, caught my interest.
Its focus is on Totone (Clément Faveau), an eighteen-year-old who lives in the countryside with his father (Mathis Bertrand) and seven-year-old sister Claire (Luna Garret).
Totone is initially portrayed as a teenager who recently left college and spends his summer drinking with his two friends, Jean-Yves (Mathis Bernard) and Francis (Dimitry Baudry).
Well, not only drinking but drinking at Stock car racing and agricultural shows. Curiously, it is said that the director Louise Courvoisier had her casting team visit Stock car racing and Agricultural shows. It was from these visits that Clément Faveau, Maïwene Barthelemy, Luna Garret, Dimitri Baudry, and Armand Sancey Richard got their first acting roles.
I was brought into the world of those emerging from youth into adulthood. Life taking shape: the anger, the rivals, the love, the lust, the overindulgence, the excesses.
After a night out and unable to stay at the female’s home, in whose bed he found himself, his father picks him up. He had taken to sleeping in a bus shelter. His father seemed to let him just be and was there for him when he needed picking up. We are not told what happened to the mother, but I sensed that she died.
His father also liked to drink. At a community event, his father became so intoxicated that Totone had to assist him to his car. He didn't sleep it off; he drove. Before morning, Totone finds him alongside his sister, an orphan.
Without any family, he takes on the role of parent for his sister. There are many scenes where Totone’s macho masculinity is on display, but when it comes to his sister, we see a sensitivity that may surprise us.
He takes a job at a local farm, but tensions with the sons of the owner lead to him being sacked. But that is not before he learns of the prize money for the best Comté cheese. He also finds some sympathy from his former boss’s daughter, Marie-Lise.
The second part of the film tells the story of him raising his sister as she assists him in vying for the prize. His friends Jean-Yves and Francis stick with him, and Marie-Lise also becomes part of his plan to win that prize.
If we forget about the cheese, the film is about a young man in the Jura region of France meeting his internal feelings and external demands of life.
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