La journée de la jupe (2009)
« Une jupe, ce n'est qu'un bout de tissu, mais
qu'elle soit courte ou qu'elle soit longue, ce symbole peut nous aider à
gagner une bataille contre l'obscurantisme, et même contre ce qu'il
convient d'appeler, la haine des femmes. Cette jupe, c'est l'anti-niqab,
c'est l'anti-burqa... » - Isabelle Adjani
"A skirt, it is just a piece of fabric. But be it long or short, this symbol can help us win a battle against obscurantism, and even against what is generally known as misogyny. This skirt, it is anti-niqab, anti-burqa..." - Isabelle Adjani (lead actress).
This film is politically incorrect and is meant to provoke the audience into taking extreme points of view, since it says things that seem outright racist or Islamophobic. However, as the plot twists and turns, with surprises calculated to heighten the melodrama, it becomes clear that it is a critique of what many people think ails the liberal, multiculturalist vision of modern society.
The leading lady is named Madame Bergerac, evoking the legendary Cyrano. The story starts with a rehearsal of 'Bourgeois Gentleman' by Moliere. So the evocation of La Douce France is deliberately provocative from the beginning, until verbal threats of rape lead the spectator into the "Real France", supposedly.
That said, the ideology of the story does seem simplistic, where stereotype characters abound. So it becomes very easy to brush it off as a right-wing point of view. The trouble is that many liberals do confess that it becomes rather difficult to deal with situations in which you become so careful about not sounding racist in your judgement that you end up not criticizing something illiberal at all.
