On Saturday, May 2, OCS reruns Mystère à Saint-Tropez, the 2021 film by Nicolas Benamou. The plot? A gang of middle-aged friends lands at a dream villa for a weekend. Only the owner vanishes. Board-game-style murder mystery, starring Christian Clavier, Benoît Poelvoorde, Thierry Lhermitte.
The village plays its usual part: yachts, white villas, rosé flowing. Postcard backdrop for a tepid whodunit. Watchable, forgettable, lukewarm aftertaste.
Still. You wonder sometimes why French cinema keeps coming back to this image. The Saint-Tropez of the Gendarmes, recycled ad infinitum. The one with chic terraces, silly disguises, bourgeois mix-ups.
Off-season, the village looks nothing like that. Fishermen at Port Suffren in the morning, la Ponche under the mistral, the old-timers at the herb market. That exists too. Nobody films it.
The movie sold a million tickets. Decent, unmemorable. It loops on cable like an evergreen filler. The village serves as a likeable backdrop, a bit flashy, never really explored.
Eventually you think we might deserve better than scenery. A real role. A story that scratches beneath the gloss.
