Paris-Timbuktu (1999)
Veteran Spanish director Luis Garcia Berlanga created this anarchic black comedy about sexual impotence and millennial anxiety. Though a Paris-based plastic surgeon spends much of his time and wealth on prostitutes, he is plagued by impotence. Despondent, he plans to commit suicide. After happening… More
Veteran Spanish director Luis Garcia Berlanga created this anarchic black comedy about sexual impotence and millennial anxiety. Though a Paris-based plastic surgeon spends much of his time and wealth on prostitutes, he is plagued by impotence. Despondent, he plans to commit suicide. After happening upon a bike with "Paris-Timbuktu" painted on it, he decides to bike from France to Africa and kill himself there on New Year's Eve. But when his plans are thwarted in Spain by a painful boil on his bottom, he is forced to room with a pair of sisters in a remote village. Through them, he finds himself increasingly immersed in the local community, populated by the likes of a clergyman suspected of murder, a nudist garage mechanic, and a bizarre champion cyclist. Paris-Timbuktu was screened at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi