Blog Post: A Self Made Hero

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-03-ca-38614-story.html

This article goes through the plot of a Self Made Hero while also talking about Audiard's motivation for the movie. The author talks about the elements of the movie that make it so well-loved. We watched the main character, Dehousse, create his life that was a lie. We see the immoral lifestyle he lives, yet there is something very intriguing about this life that makes it difficult for those watching to dislike him. The author of the article states that this is because Audiard makes the audience a willing participant in the deception that takes place in the movie. He states that the person watching finds it amusing watching Dehousse trying so hard to become an insider.

This article brought to my attention to another aspect of the movie that we did not discuss in class. In the movie after Dehousse learns that his father was not the person he believed he was, he feels the need to lie as a way to ignore the shame he felt. Many articles I read connected this to France denying its history of collaboration during WWII. The author states that this was one of the main reasons Audiard was drawn to the novel that the movie was based on. Whether or not this was the intention, I now look at Dehousee as some sort of metaphor for France as a country. This could also be a reason many felt connected to the movie.