His performance at the Olympic opening ceremony caused a lot of ink to flow. Taking advantage of this spotlight, Films Boutique acquired the rights to the highly experimental feature film by the French actor-singer. Things are going to get heated among the bigots…
The first and only film directed by Philippe Katerine was released on the sly in 2005. Photo Jérôme Bonnet for Télérama
Published on August 14, 2024 at 6:50 p.m.
Reacs and bigots of all stripes have condemned him for his appearance as a Dionysian Smurf at the joyously pagan banquet of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. With a duck-yellow beard and Avatar-blue skin, his attributes hidden by a matching thong and a garland of fruits that were more exotic than forbidden, Philippe Katerine sang Not, excerpt from his album Zouzou, to be released next fall. The cheeky and controversial performance fortunately received, quite quickly, a reception that matched its exuberance. Particularly on social networks where “The Blue Man” has become an idol: we can no longer count the disguises and pastries in his image. Taking advantage of this unexpected (Olympic) return of flame, a Franco-German distributor, Films Boutique, has even acquired the French and international rights to Pig skin, the only film directed by the unclassifiable Frenchman, released on the sly in 2005 on a handful of French screens.
Reached by telephone, Jean-Christophe Simon, a fan from the very beginning and also producer of Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film, Seeds of the wild fig tree, Jury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival, aims “to arouse curiosity” new admirers of Philippe Katerine by proposing Pig skin in various international festivals. Aware of the limited commercial potential of such a radical work, he will work on it “like some of Godard’s intermediate period films.” Between the sketch film and the personal diary, autofiction, according to the terminology of the early 20th century, Pig skin was conceived as an album, with twelve tracks, as many autobiographical essays, the DV camera as a guitar.
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In the most cult of the twelve sketches, entitled “Let’s Observe Them”, Philippe Katerine invites his critic friend Thierry Jousse into the living room of his Montmartre apartment for an insane installation, in odorama. He has arranged eleven plastic boxes containing eleven “everyday gems”, our “objects”, our ” pieces “, “phallic” or « avachies » : eleven turds of his production, all meticulously preserved and labeled with date and transformed menu, “like a photo album”. The two friends learnedly analyze the poops like works of raw art, ready-shit. Helena Noguerra, Katerine’s partner at the time, sits on the couch, mute, pecking at grapes or drinking mineral water from the bottle. Each pretending, with genius, to ignore the smells and the absurdity of the situation. It’s jubilant. It remains to be seen whether humor so french will cross the borders. After having expressed herself a lot (and having asked for forgiveness) for her Olympian excesses, Katerine is “gone on vacation, far away” and let us know that he “closed the curtain” on the subject… “No but let me/ Eat my banana/ All naked on the beach”, he used to sing.
