La cage aux folles (1978)

(Second or third or fourth viewing, On Cable TV, August 2020) I came to La cage aux folles from a very strange vantage point: I distinctly remember watching this film a few times on French-Canadian TV as a kid, but my most recent memories are those of its Americanized remake The Birdcage. Comparing this film to its own remake may be a faux-pas, but it may not be as bad as you’d think given that the original definitely holds up. Perhaps my biggest surprise is how faithful the remake is to the original: Most of the story beats are common to both movies, and almost all of the characters are there in both movies as well. What the French original doesn’t have for viewers such as myself is the weight of the actor’s persona — Michel Serrault is terrific as an over-dramatic drag queen, but his presence doesn’t have the additional context of seeing Nathan Lane in the same role. It does, in many ways, make the La cage aux folles purer: you’re evaluating it on its own merits rather than through its star-power. Fortunately, its merits are considerable. Amazingly enough for a film from the late 1970s, the treatment of its homosexual characters may be comic and caricatural, but it remains remarkably respectful. The comic sequences are funny, and the internal workings of the plot engine are solid. It’s a strong comedy, playing with different characters, some of them flamboyant and others not so much. The actors deliver the material with confidence, and the complications and lies get crazier and crazier until the only way out is the truth. It speaks well to La cage aux folles that its 1996 remake wasn’t substantially different… even though we may wonder if the same film could be made today.