All the Way to Paris, 1966
American diplomat Wellborne (Bob Courtney) and Soviet diplomat Strogoff (Jamie Uys, who also wrote and directed the film) are constantly engaging in petty disagreements at a major international summit. Fed up with their childish bickering, a fellow diplomat (Arthur Swemmer) goads the two men into a race to walk to Paris, about 2000 miles away. Followed by their respective underlings, Tanya (Reinet Maasdorp) and Johnny (Angus Neill), the two make their way across the countryside, reluctantly bonding as they go.
Thank you, mysterious HoF recommender, who realized that this kind of gentle, stupid/smart film was just the right thing for me right now.
I will admit to being a bit nervous when I first came into this film, as I was worried that the comedy might lean a bit too far into farce territory. That, and it felt like the kind of movie where casual racism and sexism would put a damper on the fun.
But nope! This is just the right kind of silliness, and looking up Uys on the IMDb, I see that he is responsible for directing
The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 (as well as the original), which was a film we owned on VHS, aka a film my siblings and I watched probably dozens and dozens of times.
The conversations between the two diplomats is basically straight out of my classroom. ("Why did you go *tsk* at me?!" "I didn't go *tsk* at you!" "Yes, you did, you went *tsk* at me!" "Oh, you mean during your speech? Yes, I went *tsk* at you! Do you know how long you were talking?!"). And as they make their journey, their sabotages are equally childish. Much of it consists of switching signs so that someone ends up in the women's section of a hotel instead of the men's; or switching signs so that someone walks the wrong way. Yeah, there's a lot of sign-based meddling.
What really makes the film work is that, despite being grounded in the very real conflict between the USSR and the USA, there isn't much direct commentary on those countries. Instead, the critique is of people who allow division and difference to endanger all of the people who depend on them. It is through sharing an experience and hardship that the two men are finally able to begin to put aside their differences and work together. At the same time, their underlings are reconciling and even beginning a tentative romance. All of this takes place under the watchful eye of the mysterious delegate, whose accent and country of origin seem suspiciously vague.
At the same time, there's some fun humor in the direction of the way that governments will inevitably suck the fun and humanity out of anything. As the journey becomes public knowledge, a panel of Soviet and American workers is put together to create a set of rules for the walkers, soullessly creating a series of regulations to be thrown at the two men. Simple pride means that neither government can have a serious conversation about the contest, becoming overly invested in the silly competition as highly symbolic.
This might be a bit too gentle or whatever for some people, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.