The Office, version française

 

(left: François Berléand as Gilles Triquet, the French Office boss. Below Ricky Gervais as David Brent in the British original)              

We were talking the other day about how comedy has trouble crossing frontiers. A great case study has just been served up by Canal+, the French pay-TV channel which made its name with a more lively output than the stodgier national networks.

Canal has brought the BBC's cult comedy The Office across the Channel, not just translating it, but producing its own Gallic version. A US version has been done, but Le Bureau, which opened at the weekend, is the first in a foreign language. The result is hilarious but also a little off-key.

The writers have taken Ricky Gervais' mock documentary of awful British office life and turned it into awful French office life while sticking to the characters and story lines. Instead of Gervais' obnoxious, egotistical boss, David Brent, le Bureau has Gilles Triquet, played by Francois Berléand, a well-known character actor. Triquet is older than Brent but just as repellant. He is regional director of Cogirep, a stationary company at Villepinte, a drab suburb near Charles de Gaulle airport. Like Brent, Triquet tries to play hip and sympathique, le boss trop cool, as he says, sprinking his French with fashionable English. He gives the "documentary" camera the same sly glances as Brent.

To make the show more French, Triquet and his staff do not spend their time getting sloshed down at the pub. French workers do not do that. Instead, the boss calls his favourites into his office for a round of champagne. Sometimes they go out to pick up women at Paris discotheques. The practical jokes with jelly (jello for Americans) are turned into jokes with strong cheese.

The show works because office life throws up the same tedium and ghastly characters everywhere. The Office's deadpan, caustic humour goes down well in France. The running joke about Triquet's cowardice over orders from headquarters to fire staff  tweaks an especially raw nerve in France, with its dread of unemployment. 

Yet the show does not quite feel French enough. I watched with a friend who works in sales in an Office-style firm in the suburbs. She laughed but found the gags a little too foreign. In particular, she said, the excruciating chumminess of Gilles Triquet was implausible because there is still much more formality between superiors and subordinates in France than in Britain. In one episode Triquet reveals himself to have been a would-be rock singer (like Brent) and forces his captive staff to listen to his songs. "That's a very British thing to do. Chez nous, it would be impossible to imagine le chef doing that," said my friend. 

Still, the series seems headed for success. The first episode this week was lauded by the critics. L'Express said: "The show is at the same time hyper-realistic and hilariously unnatural. You laugh, but not with amusement. The overall effect is very cruel." Le Journal du Dimanche called it "the funniest series of the year." Le Parisien called Le Bureau "an almost perfect reproduction of la vie en entreprise."

PS: You can get a taste of the show from the amusing site that Canal+ has set up for it. 

Comments

[Tara Lane]

I love to hear that The Office is making a French translation, albeit with a few bumps.

I'd initially refused to see the American version, assuming the British version would always be far superior, and was surprised by the quality of performances when I finally gave in. I'm now a dyed-in-the-wool American-version-of-The-Office fan, even though still harbor a soft spot for the original.

I will be interested to hear whether, as the French version continues, it will work out the kinks or whether it will continue to rub against cultural differences?

[Frank Schnittger]

Ok its time I came out. I admit it. I'm a West Wing fan. Any chance of a French version based in the Élysée Palace? Or would that just be incredibly boring?

It sounds like the greater formality of French business life would lend itself more to a "Yes Minister" rather than "The Office" type format. Slightly more upper class stuff. Has there been a French version of Yes Minister? Come to think of it have any French comedies (not including Inspector Clouseau) been a success internationally?

[Francaise de Coeur]

//"That's a very British thing to do. Chez nous, it would be impossible to imagine le chef doing that," said my friend.//

Ah, but my French husband's big bosses (he works for Cogema near Avignon) recently wrote, directed, and starred in a dinner-musical for the employees and their spouses entitled "I'd Like To Be In America".

Dressed as Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and John Wayne - and singing excrutiatingly off-key tunes throughout our elegant meal last week - they did seem (to this American, anyway) to be much more down-to-earth than French chefs are reputed to be.

Perhaps times are changing here in that respect?

[Clementine]

Franck: West Wing fan here too! A French version would be so good. But then it would mean that there is some kind of transparency about what's going on inside the Elysée. Which there clear(stream)ly isn't.

[Victor Tan]

Now if Le Bureau is lauded in France and it turns out to be a success, magnify this to the real country. That's the answer to France's problems. Who needs the politicians?

[Swift]

Francaise de Coeur: Once Sarkozy is elected he's sure to put your husband on the honours list. I mean, can you get any better than incorporating globalisation into your office diner-musicals?!

[Swift]

Does anyone know whether the Gareth equivalent in France is as convincing as the real McCoy? Is he in the French civilian army? What about Tim? Is his French sosie still hankering after the secretary? On another note: have you all noticed that CB's Paris weblog has now been elevated to top of the pile on the Times weblog page? It must be just rewards for continued fine service and stimilating debate.

[Christopher Ackland]

Ah bon? Personally I found "Le Bureau" very disappointing - as CB rightly mentions, it's just not believable, and doesn't reflect French office life at all, where the humour and "mateyness" you may find in UK business is replaced with formality and petty squabbling (at least in my experience)! Unfortunately it seems to me that the only way to laugh at "Le Bueau" is to remember the same scene being played by Gervais/Brent and co.!

[Francaise de Coeur]

Swift: Globalization was the theme alright; the skit was about a huge contract coming in from America, and how all the bosses were fighting to be appointed its project manager.

To decide the winner, an audition was held, and they all had to perform...hence the Elvis, Ray Charles and John Wayne getups.

It was hilarious; I'm not sure they expected a real live American to actually be in the audience, however.

They later asked me if something similar might happen in an American company - I had to admit that most American bigwigs probably could not name three famous French performers, much less dress and perform like them.
========
Once Sarko is elected, eh?? No hope for Royal?

[BarryB]

Name three famous French performers?

Royal is France's only hope for 21st century.

Keep up the good work CB

[Sarah Hague]

I used to have a French boss like that, but I think he was a minority figure in French business. That was some years ago, so maybe things have changed. More so, I'd have thought in small businesses than large ones though.

I'll never forget the Paris metro strikes of a few years ago which lasted, was it 3 weeks?, where people had to car-share and actually got to know people they had worked with for years. Including their their first names. That's formal!

[Gwynn Jones]

A stationary company eh? That's the trouble with France - not going anywhere.

[GAG]

I wonder how many French viewers of ‘Le Bureau’ realised that it is copied from a British series ? In a country where Anglo-Saxon is used as an offensive word, a word in which all that is bad in the world is encompassed, isn’t it strange that so much of French television is imported direct or copied from those ‘bad lands’ overseas ?
What’s more, I don’t understand why Sarkozy or the Royal one are brought into every debate on this Weblog. Forget about them, they are only passing fads. In 5 years time Marine Le Pen will be President. I’m taking bets now.
GAG

[Lazarus]

Not sure about French business, but in French academia you'd never find a David Brent a-like, the movers-and-shakers are usually too obsessed with power and prestige to try to be cool with the moved-and-shook. As for Royal and Sarko, based on the Hitchhikers Guide definition of what a President does, there is no competition!
Cheers

[Swift]

GAG: In five years time, I doubt it Le Pen will even be alive, let alone President! He's an old man, his health is deteriorating fast, his marbles have been lost for rather a long time now. There's more chance of his daughter being in control than him.

[Anna]

Having worked in the tedium of cubicle culture I couldn't get enough of The Office, and have been thrilled to discover that its American incarnation is just as funny and just as spot on as its predecessor. (That's the first time I have ever said such a thing of the many disastrous American re-makes of British hits. Living, as I do, across the pond, it's embarrassing to see how much they feel they have to dumb the originals down for them to go over here.) I hope the French version doesn't mess it up by trying to stick too close to the original, like the American one did, given the differences in French office culture. The brilliance of the Office (both British and American) is that it so perfectly captures all of the awkward and painful little moments of work life. The show will not have the same magic in France unless it plays out the little idiosyncrasies specific to French office culture. Without that it's just a regular gag-sitcom.

[GAG]

Swift. I thought Marine Le Pen was his daughter. What were you saying about marbles.
GAG

[Swift]

GAG: Touche! I take it back, it's me that's gone gaga...