Freakonomics: The Movie (But Not the One You Think)

As announced earlier, there are plans to make Freakonomics into a feature-length documentary.

But if you can’t wait, or if you just want a good laugh, there’s a fictional adaptation (very fictional) called Les Incroyables Aventures de Steven D. Levitt et Stephen J. Dubner.

Yes, it is a French film (with English subtitles), made by a student named Peha de Milain. It is far, far more ambitious than the student films my friends and I used to make. (Cheap technology helps, as does the promise of free international distribution — YouTube — but there’s also something to be said for effort.) It bristles with absurdity and quirky storytelling. It reminded me a bit — and I mean this as a compliment — of the infamous bar mitzvah film in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

The film can be viewed below. But first, here’s a brief Q&A that Peha was good enough to answer:

Q: Why did you make this film?

A: I shot this movie after my lecture of Freakonomics. It’s our economics professor, Serge Schweitzer (the professor appearing in the movie) who advised us to read it. He talk up the goods of this book, and sometimes take off some examples of it, for his lessons or for his conference. When I read Freakonomics, I wanted, right away, to share things I learned in the book. In the book there’s a lot of examples, a lot of stories with “twist” at the end (we thought that the first theory is good — and at the end you demonstrate that it’s wrong and you deliver the good interpretation). I had already made films with friend and family so I thought that it would be nice to make a film based on Freakonomics and make it for our economy teacher. So I made the film for fun, for our economy teacher, and to share my interest to the book.

Q: How long did it take, and how much money did it cost?

A: When I made other short movies with friend and family I always wanted that they cost less as it was possible (hum … I’m perhaps skinflint). So, as the others, this film cost $0. We made with what we had (yes, there is an English phone cab in our city).

We shot the film during almost four days and sometimes between two lessons or after lessons. It was not a professional filming but we tried to do at best.

Q: Tell me about yourself and your collaborators.

A: In the movie, I play you. When I shot this movie (2007), I was studying law degree (licence) in La Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée). Currently, I’m in a cinema school in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique). I’m 22 year old, I’m interested in cinema (especially comedy and directors writers as Mel Brooks, Chaplin, Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, Tina Fey). So, after my diploma of law, I went to a school of cinema. My collaborators were with me, in law, in my university. As me they read the book and when I say to them that I would like to make a movie about the book for our teacher they were motivated to do it. They are still studying law in different city.

Q: What kind of feedback have you gotten?

A: There is a very good feedback. First, students of my university all saw the movie because our teacher spoke about it during his lessons, and that the director of the university library put the movie with other movies to rent in the library.

Furthermore, we gave a DVD of the movie to our teacher and many students wanted a DVD too. They made copy of the movie and now some students from other university saw the movie. I was surprised that some person that I didn’t know congratulated me for the movie! I’ve got a good feedback from internet; some people don’t like because it’s talking about economy. I show the movie to the director of my cinema school during the test to be chosen to go in this school, and he likes the movie. At last I was chosen!

As you can see, Peha is beyond charming, and I say that not just because he plays me in the movie. So here you go with Peha’s Incroyable Aventure:

Part 1:

Part 2 :

Part 3 :