In the late 1970s, gnomes were bizarrely popular, thanks Will Huygen & Rien
Poortvliet’s bestselling hardcover “field guide” gift book. A lot of people put
gnomes in their gardens and forgot about them. Then, in the early 1990s,
Leprechauns captured horror fans’ interest with a series of increasingly cheesy
movies, over shadowing the gnomes. Those gnomes will kill for more attention in
creator Joel Kohn’s six-part Gnomes, which premieres today on CBC Gem.
The
Australian town of Nompton is only really known for its Gnome Festival, but for
various neurotic reasons, police Sgt. Arnold Kipps is reluctant to leave. This
year, Mayor Lachlan Morrison pulled out all the stops for Gnome Fest, borrowing
a statue of the infamous Gnome Queen from a German museum, at considerable “unbudgeted”
expense to the town. That would be the same Gnome Queen seen in the prologue,
when desperate National Socialists officers tried to rouse her, to harness her
power. They painfully failed at the latter, after successfully reviving her.
Fortunately, her near dead caretaker managed to recast the containment spell,
turning her back to stone.
Super
awkwardly, Kipps inadvertently re-awakens the Queen after a rare night of
drinking. It is hard to blame the guy. His ex, Ellie McKay, came back to
Nompton with her obnoxiously woke boss, Superintendent Harvey Poll, to fire
everyone and close the town’s station. He also still misses McKay, because she
really was the one. Frankly, her departure is probably why his blood has the
right purity to revive the Gnome Queen, if you follow.
The
Queen immediately runs amok, turning the towns garden gnomes into her private
army of little red capped maniacs. However, she will not regain her full
strength until she wields her magic battle axe, which Kipps misplaced during his
drunken wanderings.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Brigitte Bardot movies probably contributed
more to France’s trade balance than Peugeot and Citroen combined. She is still France’s
most iconic celebrity, even though she hasn’t made a new film since 1973 (and
her politics are a bit awkward). Mother-son writer-director-creators
Daniele and Christopher Thompson lean into the sex and scandal of the movie
star’s life in the six-part Bardot, which premieres today on CBC Gem, up
in Canada, where a lot of people like to pretend they speak French.
Bardot
was raised in a strict, upper-middleclass household, but her conservative
father Louis could never really control her. At the age of fifteen she started
making movies and commenced an affair with twenty-one year-old screenwriter
Roger Vadim. That sounds creepy, but they were French, right? However, her
parents did not see it that way. Yet, they eventually allowed him to marry
their daughter when she turned eighteen, after several years of strict supervision.
Their
first project together was …And God Created Woman, which would be a
breakout movie for both, especially her. Even though she was not yet a full-fledged
star, the paparazzi swarmed her during the chaotic production (which is nearly
the exclusive focus of the second episode) and their ferocity only intensified
after the film became a scandalous sensation.
The
Thompsons start with Bardot’s Lolita-esque teen years and take her through the
tabloid-fodder aftermath of her work on Henri Georges Clouzot’s The Truth.
A lot of fans will be disappointed the Thompsons do not stretch the timeline
further, to reach Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, which many cineastes must
consider her best film.
In
many ways, the Thompsons and lead thesp Julia de Nunez reinforce all the
sex-kitten-in-a-state-of-arrested-development cliches about Bardot. Throughout
all six episodes, she seems incapable of making good relationship decisions and
displays a marked aversion to accepting responsibility for her life. While the
treatment of Vadim is sympathetic, they essentially suggest Bardot ruined the
career of her second husband Jacques Charrier. Perhaps not coincidentally,
several episodes also end with the observation that Charrier and their son
successfully sued Bardot for the way her memoir portrayed their marriage and
her attempts at parenting.
Frankly,
Bardot the series lays waste to just about all the celebrities who
crossed Bardot’s path, including her musical lovers Sacha Distel and Gilbert
Becaud, producer Raoul Levy, and the “love of her life,” Jean-Louis
Trintignant. Clouzot also comes off a bit rough at times, but he is redeemed at
the 11th hour—Louis Do de Lencquesaing’s gruffly charismatic
performance also helps tremendously in this respect.
It
is hard to pass judgement on the Franco-Argentine de Nunez (a newcomer who won
the role of Bardot in a nationwide casting call reminiscent of that for Scarlett
O’Hara), because she is always so impishly kittenish and naively immature. Yet,
we feel for her in later episodes, as the overwhelmed Bardot’s privacy is
constantly violated and she is repeatedly betrayed by those around her.
