La Cage Aux Folles (1978)

 Welcome back to the Criterion Challenge.

As I said last time, we're doing something a little bit different today. Along with this writeup on the 1978 French-Italian comedy, La Cage Aux Folles, I'm taking part in a crossover discussion with a friend, offering a second perspective on the movie. In particular, discussing how it compares to its 1996 American remake, The Birdcage.

That discussion will be available to read here: https://theguyinthe3rdrow.blogspot.com/2021/06/la-cage-aux-folles-1978-discussion.html

There's no intended reading order here - whichever appeals to you to read first, by all means, do so.
With the majority of the comparisons in that discussion, I'm looking to focus on just the merits of La Cage on its own, but I apologize in advance if I retread ground. I say this because, honestly, the thing I keep coming back to with this movie is how relatively well it has aged.

Ordinarily, doing a movie with this subject matter, especially as a comedy, is a really iffy prospect. As Drew McWeeny arguably put it best, comedy ages faster than almost any other type of film. So much so that, on paper, the idea of a late 1970s comedy about a homosexual couple automatically sounds like a representational minefield.

To be fair, there are some aspects that haven't held up well - the racial dynamics of the movie, care of the houseboy, Jacob, come to mind  - but as far as its central couple is concerned, this holds up surprisingly well.

To clarify - Jacob is the ONLY non-white character in this
movie.
Yeeeeeeeeeeah...

A big part of where this comes from is Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault as the film's central couple. I will admit there are some cliched and stereotypical aspects to the performances, most notably in Serrault's Albin, who fits a lot of the effete gay man tropes. Several of those work in the context of the film, both as a farce and as far as Albin's character as an aging drag performer.

Even with the broader cliches and comedic elements, however, the movie works because of the chemistry between the two. From their first scene together, playing as a bickering couple, to moments like the genuinely touching scene at Albin's cemetery, when Tognazzi's Renato tells him of his desire for them to share a plot together, the movie maintains the love between its two leads.

For not being explicitly presented as a romantic movie, that love is the central piece that the entire story hangs on. It's the complication that Renato's son's marriage hinges on, it's the relationship that they try to fool the conservative in-laws about, and at the end, it's the genuine love between Renato and Albin that winds up bringing the film to its entertaining conclusion.

With that as the lynchpin, this movie could have aged like milk if it hadn't been done well. Instead, it's one of the strongest parts of the movie and part of why, comparisons to its remake aside, it's still a very entertaining farce with a lot of heart at its own center.
Two down, one to go.

Catch you for the end of Pride Month next time.

Till then