20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The sixtie's sexual revolution., November 16, 2000
This review is from: The Mother and the Whore [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This is a film about three promiscuous people looking for every opportunity to have sex, without any qualms of conscience or fear of Aids. It makes you quite envious. Marie, who is living with and supporting Alexandra, doesn't complain about and senses no danger in these peripheral affairs; she has a firm believe in the soundness of their core relationship.
As Alexandra is walking past a cafe one day constantly on the look-out, he catches the eye of Veronika and decides that she will be his next adventure. Without a moments hesitation he chases after her as she leaves the cafe and says, "I haven't time to go for a drink at the moment but will you give me your telephone number?" She does, and from that moment Marie finds herself with some serious competition. At first she is so sure of Alexandria's love that she is even willing to allow Veronika to share their bed! Only later does she have misgivings and pangs of jealousy.
Veronika is far from being your wholesome girl-next door, she too is addicted to sex and offhandedly mentions that she has been with a great many men in the five years since her 20th birthday. Being a nurse she says makes it easy for her.
Alexandra is an idle, narcissistic, garrulous intellectual who will spout his ideas to anyone willing to listen. He has that much in common with Veronika; both have long scenes in which they talk in close-up directly to the camera. Because of this and because there are so many of these scenes and the film is so long, you have a real sense of getting to know the characters. There is one long scene in which nothing happens at all but which didn't bore me for a moment. Marie, alone, puts on a long-playing record and then lies on the mattress on the floor in her sparsely furnished shambles of a bed-sit and we listen with her to the whole of one long track of music. Apart from lifting her hand to her face at one point she does nothing and yet we feel sympathy for her and feel we know her better at the end of it.
Such uneventful scenes are a characteristic of French films and are what make them seem so realistic and true to life. They seem realistic because in real life we do listen for long periods to others talking, and we do listen to music with others in silence, and because we are with these people as we are with friends in real-life. Thus the length of the film is a positive advantage. I recommend it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite Movie, March 25, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mother and the Whore [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Although made in 1973, this movie captures the essence of what it was to be alive in the extraordinary era we call "The Sixties." I think my favorite scene is one where Marie comes home, puts a record on the turntable (the language itself is '60's!), and listens to it in real time. The moment is at once audacious and banal. Here is all the painful retrospection, narcissism, and struggle to connect that characterizes that era. I cannot think of another film that hits the note so exactly.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sad lives going nowhere, May 4, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mother and the Whore [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Jean-Pierre Leaud has grown up in cinema. Whether watching him as the delinquent of 400 BLOWS or as the lost director in IRMA VEP, he is a special presence in any film. Here he is a lost twenty-something with two women in his life; one is older and lets him live with her--hence, the mother; and the other is a young nurse that goes on and on about her empty sexual relationships (the wh**e). Basically the film centers around their lives and is mainly filled with conversations between the three. Everything is live. Every song in the film is playing on the turntable in the background and there is no overdubbing. It's plain and in black and white with few settings. So, why is this film so great, considered to represent the end of the french new wave and one of it's greatest achievements? The answer is first-time director Jean Eustache. The man bled his life into this 3+ hour script and it is nothing short of remarkable. Eustache may have won a little too much attention with his debut. When his following films didn't live up to MOTHER's success, he took his own life; I believe with a knife through the heart. While not for everyone, it will make a great rainy Sunday afternoon with the TV. Intelligent and thought-provoking, this is one of the crown jewels of 70s cinema.
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