Richard Guedj
Four garbage collectors discover a disoriented young woman, hidden behind a heap of boxes. Charitable, they collect her and provide her with hospitality. One of them has an artist's studio where they usually meet. Secretly falling in love with this pretty and mysterious woman, they will, at first, collect the garbage in record time to get back to her, then considerably slow down the rate when they learn that the young woman is on the run, dangerous, wanted by the police. The four friends begin to regret their simple life of yesteryear.
Séléna is chief of the Marseille police. Respected and feared by his men, his sole enemy seems to be himself, along with his 300 pounds. Strangled by the bursting straight-jacket of his body, tortured by his past, he leads a solitary life in a large isolated house. Séléna is the only person who knows that Elsa was guilty of the murder of her uncle, a wealthy shipowner. Fascinated by the young woman’s beauty, he offers her a strange deal: in exchange for his silence, he demands that she dines with him every night for a year.
A bicycle race is held every year in a pass of the Alps called Parpaillon. With the energy of a skillful cyclist perhaps as a great tribute to François, the mailman played by Tati in The Big Day, Moullet makes a comedy by pedaling at a pace that allows him to reinvent the possibilities of film gags. La Cabale des oursins is a guided tour to the northern France, transformed into a Geography lesson in the pataphysical style of an Alfred Jarry disciple.
