Keswick Film Club - Welcome To The Sticks

Synopsis

Originally entitled ‘Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis’ this gem of a comedy explores the north/south divide in France. The film plays on cultural and linguistic differences as the hero, Philippe, travels from suave and comfy meridional France to take up a post-office manager's job in his country's grim north which most of the French consider to be populated with hard drinking unemployed rednecks speaking an incomprehensible local dialect – Ch’ti.

The film is brought to life for a British audience through inspired subtitling which succeeds in matching French mis-speaks with plausible English equivalents in a tour de force which, says the Guardian, merits the creation of a whole new Oscar category. Allied to ”the ingenuity of the
writing, the fluency and comic timing of the actors, in particular the assured direction of Dany Boon, who happens to be a Ch’ti himself”, the Sticks and the town of Bergues are destined to charm.

Thanks To Pathe