OSS 117 racist and sexist? Nicolas Bedos pleads for "freedom of humor"

Nicolas Bedos is not going dead hand: the director is taking over the successful parody franchise

OSS 117

with a new part,

Red Alert in Black Africa

(in theaters on August 4), which attacks racism as well as politically correct. In these new adventures of the French secret agent, the comic genius of Jean Dujardin, who embodies him, is intact. The Oscar-winning actor dons the retro costume of the least gifted French intelligence spy for the third time.

On the program: buffoon stunts, parodies of James Bond scenes and third degree projections.

“I like being a secret agent, shooting outdoors, doing my little movie stunts.

OSS, that's it: the content and the form ”

, confided to AFP Jean Dujardin, before the presentation of the film at the end of the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

Read also: For OSS 117, Nicolas Bedos transforms the communist town hall of Gennevilliers into an African palace

In

Red Alert in Black Africa

, 117 is given a new mission, helping an African leader (the country is not specified, regardless in the eyes of OSS and his superiors ...) to put down a rebellion before the elections presidential, of course played in advance.

But Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, dressed to the nines and who is still saluting the small female staff with a slap on the buttock, takes a big blow of old: he is joined by the services of an ambitious young man, OSS 1001 (Pierre Niney).

Fatou N'Diaye is Zéphyrine the "bad guy", wife of the president and leader of the rebels, in whose bed, obviously, OSS 117 will end.

Without filter

Twelve years after leaving

Rio no longer responds

, will the humor "OSS 117" sound the same, in a society where questions of racism, colonial heritage and questioning of patriarchy have become power stations?

The two previous sections, signed Michel Hazanavicius, also played with exoticism and clichés.

"Red alert in black Africa" ​​head-on attacks these angry subjects.

Nicolas Bedos, 42, took the helm for this adaptation to the fast pace.

Comedian, actor and writer, with "OSS 117" he signs his third film after

La Belle Epoque

and

Monsieur & Madame Adelman

.

Engaged on the left, Guy Bedos' son is not afraid of divisive positions and worked with the same screenwriter as for the previous episodes (Jean-François Hallin).

The film takes place in France in 1981, at the end of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's term of office, and wields unfiltered humor with Jean Dujardin as an aging white male, unbalanced and outdated, who gets bogged down in political correctness.

“It is not the politically incorrect, which implies the desire to jostle, to shock, to hurt, which I hold dear.

It's up to the freedom of humor,

”Nicolas Bedos told AFP.

Before adding:

"We make films (...) for spectators, not for Twitter!"

Tintin in Congo

#MeToo, "cancel culture", this episode multiplies the nods to the debates of the moment, with a hero who revises his fundamentals on the plane, by rereading

Tintin in Congo

!

Warned by his superior before disembarking on the continent of the fact that

"our friends see racism everywhere"

, the spy makes tons of it as soon as he arrives at the hotel, refusing a black bellboy to carry him his suitcases while throwing :

"But what are these prejudices?"

Read also: "Who cares about starters: health first": Nicolas Bedos is ironic about the health pass

Virilism also takes for its rank, always in supported caricature mode, with a macho and homophobic OSS 117, reduced to sexual impotence and exceeded by 1001, the character of Pierre Niney, metrosexual in devil. Obviously, this great trip will be the occasion of life lessons for the character of Dujardin, convinced at the outset that

"Africans are happy, sympathetic, and dance well".

Will

OSS 117

find its audience in a complicated context this summer for French cinema, particularly because of the implementation of the health pass? The previous sections of the French cousin of "Austin Powers", adapted from a literary series by Jean Bruce inaugurated in 1949, set the bar high: the first two

OSS

each gathered more than two million spectators.