Saturday, 22 November 2014

Belle Fille Comme Moi


Also Known As/Subtitle:
Gorgeous Girl Like Me
Year:
1972
Country:
France…
Predominant Genre:
Comedy
Director:
François Truffaut…
Outstanding Performance:
Bernadette LAFONT…
Premiss:
A young sociologist, preparing a thesis on criminal women, interviews Camille Bliss in prison. She tells him her life, her murders and her love affairs.
Themes:
Christianity
Compassion
Courage
Destiny
Emotional repression
Empathy
Humanity
Identity
Loneliness
Nature
Self-expression
Sexism
Social class
Solipsism
Stereotyping
White culture
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Unknown
Review Format:
DVD

Really Bernadette LAFONT’s film since she completely overwhelms the narrative and so perfectly embodies her role. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine another actress playing this particular part.

LAFONT plays a young woman with an innocent and unaffected sexuality that men find hard to resist; while also being completely cynical, calculating & manipulative in this satire on repressed Western male sexuality.

The journey from prison (for murdering her abusive father) and her successful marriage and wealth in her own name is quite an odyssey for a lower-class kid. Yet, the events depicted are somewhat arbitrary and could easily be seen in any order. This makes it difficult for the story to reveal character so that we never get much beyond a mannered, superficial, French farce of a sex comedy – albeit a frequently-funny one.


Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (Esthetics) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.