En Fanfare
On a long flight this summer, I breathed a sigh of resignation after scanning the list of 154 films on offer, ascertaining there wasn’t a single one I’d prefer to the imperceptible movement of the mini aeroplane on the virtual map. Then I looked again, and found a jewel. I’d read a review of Emmanuel Courcol’s En Fanfare, but hadn’t associated it with ‘The Marching Band’, the English title. The press has described it as ‘an archetypal feel-good story’, but that does not do it justice. The film offers an exploration at once fond and searing of identity and belonging. It is immediately accessible, yet profound. It made me laugh and cry to the extent I thought I was disturbing fellow passengers – which I might have done, had they not been asleep. The Times called it an ‘almost Rousseauesque examination of nature versus nurture’. Where Rousseau proceeded by categories, though, Courcol, developing his theme musically, brings forth harmony and counterpoint where you might not expect it.
