Customer Reviews

Messidor [VHS]

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MESSIDOR is a superb film about the limits of freedom. It is also a road movie, though a bleak & unsettling one. Two young women meet, and without really planning it, decide to hitch-hike together. It seems almost a whim. When their money runs out, they decide to continue their impromptu journey, depending on their wits for food & shelter. One is a bored college student, the other from a rural area, and the two do not seem to have alot in common. They do not bond in the predictable ways, and their friendship is slow to develop and not without friction. The longer their journey continues, the more bleak & dangerous it gets. As is THELMA & LOUISE, the fact that they are women often complicates matters, and alters the dynamic from most road movies. There is an enigmatic quality to the story since their decision to undertake this journey is spur-of-the-moment, and it is accentuated by the fact that they begin as strangers, only getting to know each other along the way. The experience of watching this movie mirrors the nature of the women's travels--it doesn't flow but is unpredictable, veering in unexpected directions. I found it mesmerizing. A French film called VAGABOND has similar themes, but I found MESSIDOR to be the better film. I highly recommend it--just don't expect the pacing of a Hollywood road movie.

Two charismatic young women from different backgrounds meet when they hitchhike. One is a country girl who happens to be in the city. The other is a city girl student who has tired of her goals. Each was supposed to go her own way at the end of the ride. However based on a mutual dare, they decide to see how long they can get by together living on their wits. They mostly beg by day & sleep in barns at night. Then voila they stumble onto a gun & head for the point of no return (they get there). Made before Thelma & Louise,the ending is stronger & not corny.

I saw this film on British TV in the very late '70s (I think it was actually released in '77, not '79 as it states here), and I've been waiting 25 years or so to see it again. That's how powerful and, to use an over-used word, haunting this film is. I can honestly say that the two hours I spent watching this back then has stayed with me ever since. A mesmerising study in alienation that evokes the psychic disintegration and ennui of Europe in the '70s. Sounds dull? It isn't. It's like nothing you'll have ever seen.