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On Tour (Mathieu Amalric, 2010)
On Tour repeatedly
proposes the burlesque troupe as a family unit. Amalric cuts from a scene in
which Joachim lays in bed with his brother to one of two girls from the troupe
in bed together. Another edit takes us from a meal among the dancers to a family
meal with Joachim and his children. These parallels are continually belabored up
until Joachim’s concluding speech about family. Much of
On Tour’s run time sees Joachim being
systematically rejected by his brother, father, and children (we learn that his
wife left him much earlier). The determinism of these overscripted scenes
undermines the rowdy, improvised feel that drives the rest of the movie. Though these dancers are selling glamour, their lives on the
road, mostly spent shuttling from one hotel to the next, are anything but
glamorous. They are a boisterous bunch (as one would expect in a French film
about Americans), but they are largely self-sufficient. Joachim may be their
manager, but they would likely manage just fine without him. In a press
interview we learn that this troupe is part of an empowered “New Burlesque”
movement, made by women for women, further jeopardizing Joachim’s status as
their supposed patriarch. On Tour initially
promises to be a raucous ride, but somewhere along the way it begins to strain
for significance and energy starts to flag. The marginalization of the women who
should be the film’s prime attraction is troublesome, turning this into
something of a vanity project for Amalric. His performance, which grows
increasingly frenzied as the film wears on, begins to feel like it belongs to a
different film. When set off against the minor backstage hijinks involving the
women in the troupe (e.g. one is too shy to go nude on stage), the movie becomes
lopsided. Ultimately, the best parts of
On Tour are misshapen. The stage production, which we only get brief
glimpses of, seems not to add up to a cohesive show. The same can be said for
this film, which has its best moment in a sweet but entirely discursive scene
set at a gas station where Joachim flirts with a female attendant. 44
Jeremy Heilman 07.19.11
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A
traveling troupe of burlesque dancers grows into a surrogate family, of sorts,
in Mathieu Amalric’s rambling On Tour.
This shaggy dog story about a group of American performers on a low-rent tour
around the outskirts of France offers a series of passing pleasures but fails to
cohere into a meaningful whole. In it a group of (real-life) American burlesque
dancers with names like Dirty Martini and Mimi Le Meaux head to France, eager to
conclude with a big show in Paris. Unfortunately, as the story begins, it
becomes apparent that Joachim (Amalric), their somewhat questionable manager,
might not be capable of securing their dream gig. Like most backstage dramas,
On Tour generates as much energy
behind the scenes as in front of them. Unlike most films of this type, though,
that’s not saying very much.