Like a Turtle on Its Back (La Tortue sur le dos)

Like a Turtle on Its Back is a 1978 French comedy directed by Luc Béraud, with a screenplay credited to fellow filmmaker Claude Miller, who himself would go on to a notable directing career of his own. The cast is led by Bernadette Lafont, already a familiar face from the French New Wave by this point, and a young Christian Clavier in one of his earlier film roles before he became one of French cinema's biggest comic stars. The supporting company includes Jean-François Stévenin and Étienne Chicot, along with director Jean Eustache appearing in front of the camera rather than behind it. Running just under two hours, the picture was made purely as a French production without international co-financing. The pairing of an established New Wave actress with several figures who were themselves directors or would soon direct gives the project an unusually filmmaker-heavy ensemble for a late-1970s comedy.