The plot sounds like an underdog comedy soon to be retooled as a Broadway musical: a recently orphaned teen in rural France is on a mission to make a prize-winning wheel of cheese.
But Louise Courvoisier’s remarkable debut feature – already a Cannes and Cesar prize-winner – is very different from, say, Kinky Boots or The Full Monty.
Holy Cow is rooted in Jura, the rural eastern department where the director, a part-time farmer, grew up. Terroir plays as vital a role in Courvoisier’s drama as it does in the wines produced there. The amateur cast are locals. The prize Comté cheese is a regional speciality.
Fans of John Connell’s The Cow Book will find plenty to admire in the agricultural details: curds are scooped with muslin from vats of hot milk; straw sticks to amniotic soak on a newborn calf. Courvoisier’s home turf is anything but pastoral, though. Rowdy teens on scooters get drunk, pass out and pick fights with similarly minded youths from a rival village.
Grand Tour star Crista Alfaiate: ‘Portuguese cinema has this beautiful heritage – the sense of freedom’
Four new films to see this week
Colin Farrell pays moving tribute to his father at Dublin funeral: ‘I loved being your son’
You don’t have to have a hide like an especially thick rhinoceros to be a screenwriter, but it helps
In this spirit, Totone (Clément Faveau), a hot-headed, ruddy-faced 18-year-old, just wants to hang out with the lads until the sudden death of his dad leaves him with a household and a seven-year-old sister (Luna Garret) to look after.
The film’s compellingly tough and tender hero sells the family tractor and takes a job at a local factory before hatching a get-rich scheme to win a cheesemaking contest with a grand prize of €30,000.
Part of the plan is Marie-Lise (Maïwene Barthelemy), a young dairy farmer. While Totone hooks up with her, his chums siphon her award-winning milk. At home he figures out how to towel-dry his sister after a shower.
Powered along by youthful exuberance, earthy sex scenes and keen naturalism, Holy Cow is a box-office sensation in France, where it outperformed Anora and The Brutalist. The cinematographer Elio Balezeaux finds winning tableaux in dung, well-used farm equipment and sun-dappled pastures. An auspicious debut for everyone involved.
In cinemas from Friday, April 11th
