France's skewed self-image

The film "Welcome to the Land of Shtis", in which a postal director is transferred to a region in the north of France where the dialect is almost incomprehensible, says much about the state of France today, writes the weekly newspaper Die Zeit: "The film shows a France ... with floral wallpaper in the bedroom, protected from globalisation and crises, cosily ensconced in the familiar universe of a post office. ... But aside from a few elderly people in the countryside or in mining areas, practically no one in northern France speaks Shti any more. ... [The director] Dany Boon has revived a dying language, which sounds in the German dubbed version like a bold cross between Swabian and Swiss German. All this fits in very well with a complete absence of foreigners. For 106 minutes not a single person of Arab origin crosses the screen. ... What kind of a country is this, that delights in such a skewed image of itself?"

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