Merci!
2003 · 7m · Bélgica
Directed by Christine Rabette
Genres: comedy
Tones: contemplative, humorous
An everyday situation on a bus prompts a lighthearted reflection on people's attitudes toward one another.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A bus ride meditation on politeness? Pass—this is exactly the kind of safe, observational comedy that gets mistaken for wisdom at film festivals, and I'm not biting.
Rabette's 2003 sensibility feels anchored in a specific moment of European observational cinema, where formal restraint and a patient camera accumulate moral weight through accumulated small gestures—there's a lineage here worth defending.
The film lives or dies on Rabette's choice to let awkward silences breathe longer than comfort allows; that single decision turns a generic premise into something that actually stings.