Bye Bye Monkey

Bye Bye Monkey (Italian: Ciao maschio, French: Rêve de singe) is a 1978 Italian-French film, directed by Marco Ferreri and starring Gérard Depardieu, Marcello Mastroianni, James Coco and Geraldine Fitzgerald.[1] It is about a man who finds a baby chimpanzee in a giant King Kong prop and decides to raise it like a son. It was filmed in English and shot in Long Island, New York. As this was a French-Italian co-production, French and Italian dubbed versions were made for their respective countries' theatrical releases.

Bye Bye Monkey
Italian theatrical release poster
Directed byMarco Ferreri
Produced byMaurice Bernart
Written byMarco Ferreri
Gérard Brach
Rafael Azcona
StarringGérard Depardieu
Marcello Mastroianni
James Coco
Gail Lawrence
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Music byPhilippe Sarde
CinematographyLuciano Tovoli
Edited byRuggero Mastroianni
Release date
24 February 1978 (Italy)
Running time
114 min.
CountryItaly
France
LanguageEnglish

Plot

The film is set in a dark surreal New York that is mostly devoid of humans and populated only by rats and a few eccentrics. Lafayette is a young French electrician living on his own in a basement who works for Andreas Flaxman, the cynical owner of a waxwork museum dedicated to recreating scenes from imperial Rome. He works alongside his friend the sculptor Luigi Nocello, who the maintains the varied and often macabre wax displays, such as the Crucifixion of Jesus and the Assassination of Julius Caesar, which fill the museum.

Lafayette also works as a lighting technician for a feminist theatre group. After rehearsal one day, the women in the group discuss their next project and decide to improvise a piece about rape for their next production, contending that women are just as capable of violence as men are; in the middle of their discussion, they knock Lafayette unconscious with a bottle of Coca-Cola, pin him down, and the attractive Angelica volunteers to rape Lafayette.

Beside the Hudson River, amidst construction site of Battery Park City, Lafayette meets Luigi and a band of eccentrics who find an abandoned baby chimpanzee in the palm of a giant King Kong Sculpture that Lafayette adopts. When he brings the chimp with him to the museum, Flaxman warns him that the chimp will rob him his freedom if he does not get rid of it.

Flaxman is approached by the mysterious Paul Jefferson of the State Foundation for Psychological Research who convinces the initially resistant Flaxman to transform the face of the sculpture Julius Caesar into the face of John F. Kennedy.

Angelica, who has become enamored with Lafayette, moves into his sordid flat and shares in the care of the infant chimp. However, when Lafayette does not respond to the news that she is pregnant, she moves out. Alone again, he returns one day to find his baby ape eaten by rats. In total despair and needing human contact, he breaks into the waxwork museum but is met with hostility by the owner. The two fight and a fire, presumably caused by faulty wiring, consumes them both. Later, we see Angelica on the shore playing happily with her child.

Cast

Awards

The film was presented at the official competition of the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and received the Grand Prize of the Jury, in tie with Jerzy Skolimowski's The Shout.[2]

References
  1. "NY Times: Bye Bye Monkey". NY Times.com. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  2. "Festival de Cannes: Bye Bye Monkey". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-31. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
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