Reviews

I'll try to be brief, as usual in my posts on the board. I've always suspected Mrs Varda's work to be part of the Demy mystique not only in kinship. Part of is, certainly, in a way ironic people would expect: there's so much sadness and gloom (Demy's touch) underlying the simple joy in life it can only pass in the work's blood by language (usually faked for the circumstance and made to cheat on everyone, Varda's touch for instance).

Take actors for example: they are known for having motors like greed, or jealousy. Movie world asks for this, and this is public's demand, so there's no way it can possibly end. This is timeless as cinema is- and the current devout to this transmission of aloofness, and also feverish love, so Mr Simon Cinéma's childish, ever-cheating, ever- awesome Michel Piccoli is never to die, an ever jealous, ever sentimental, born to play this metaphor man who is Cinema as a whole, is essentially language, not picture.

There's something more sordid about this film either- not even its "in- your-face" approach (somehow (curiously, Varda's hypocritical touch) a five year old could see this film and enjoy it- why not, this is playful too) and past the "greatest movie moments and quotes" is his belief in nostalgia. It's shocking when you think this was thought of as a tribute essentially. It plays with your nerves and brains, even though it gives you a feeling of "you were never there, but WE were. Nay, you just sat there but you were NEVER there" (and this is missing a whole lot of the film's initial purposes, as well as the movie-crazy audiences in the first place). So this film is a lack of respect and a sh!thole, playing for what it has never invented, and only playing with the minds of the movie-crazy-audiences mentalities it should respect in the first place. Don't be fooled, brethren.

Still living to this day, Moullet was not taken seriously for a long time. Well, he should. The satire is only apparent, the apparent lack of sensitivity downplays the impression "we've seen this before". Alas, we haven't.

Take this seriously or not- and it's Moullet's touch not to try to make us take it seriously- but a lot is said about the history of France, from country to town and the way back, about interactions between people, about what makes everyone lonely and what makes them join a club.

Hence the title, one would expect both actresses to be very different one from the other, at least physically. It doesn't really happen, save it for the voices. Hilarious scenes succeed- that cinema-scene-with- chimpanzee-noises, the 16 yr old apprentice memorizing the girls' exercises themselves cannot understand, the janitor yelling "You Brechtians!". It's not slapstick comedy, and it has nothing to do with most comedies of the era. The humor here is much more nonsensical, tenderly anarchist. Don't expect cows to deliver any milk here, or hens to lay eggs; nature is as insensitive as humans can sometimes be. The egocentric tone of the film slowly disrupts in a "no way" kind of values, so it's really important that the film has no opening or closing credits, that the set is (obviously) the same in many sequences (the dance hall, the cinema, even the Sorbonne). The sound is very realistic- it's really Paris.

One last words about actors: they're all killers. The two Brigittes are really very good, Melki is as sober in his "nice guy" character as he'll be playing the fool in Pollet's movies (for example). Cameos are as convincing. Chabrol plays a cousin (not an uncle, mind you) in reference to his movie of the same name, Rohmer is "the teacher" (Chabrol's nickname of his), Téchiné a devoted Ludwich fan wishing to die during a theatrical broadcast.

One pretentious filmmaker would have ruined the whole thing. Moullet's abrupt philosophy and the brilliant cinematography help us get along. A masterpiece. Some kind of therapy perhaps.