Word: brel
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...just next door is Jacques Brel, a shirt salesman whose wife has run off with her psychiatrist. Woebegone even at the best of times, the salesman is having one of his worse days. He decides to commit suicide. Of course, he bungles the job. He bungles everything. His suicidal impulses impinge on Ventura's concentration, eventually even threaten his mission...
Before long−and A Pain in the A− is nothing if not brisk−Ventura is forced to take Brel under his wing, approximately the place where his rifle butt ought...
...Brel succeeds in killing himself, then the death will have to be reported to the police, company that Ventura can easily do without. Ventura makes an attempt to do Brel's job for him−out in the country with a single, simple pistol shot−but is totally undone by events, which include having to drive a hysterical pregnant woman to a clinic...
...Brel writes bombastic ballads about love and loss and even larger issues, such as old age, war and redemption. Brel is not modest, and neither are the people who honor him here. The songs have lots of volume but no energy or pith. The film's notion of mise en scène is to have one number-about sons-staged in front of a trio of crosses from which dangle three uncomfortable youths...
...Brel himself shows up looking appropriately dour, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth in the accepted Gallic manner. He slouches over a beer and sings one of his best-known tunes, Ne Me Quittes Pas, which we might translate roughly as "Please Don't Split." This is the first number after the film's intermission. It would have been more appropriate, even more poignant, if it had come just before...