Commissioned to cover the Europe 1 Podium radio tour (which brought pop stars to France’s leading tourist destinations), Étaix offers a witty and searching documentary portrait of the country’s generational divides and cultural blind spots following the tumult of May 1968. He remains as sharp-eyed as ever, juxtaposing the professed ideals of the French populace with images of gluttony, ineptitude, and drab urban sprawl. The film’s satire, however, becomes a means of ambitiously chronicling the interviewees’ shifting—and, often, quite insightful—thoughts on sexuality, monogamy, the pervasiveness of advertising, the nature of societal progress, and even the (quite mixed!) reputation of Étaix himself.
