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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling and absorbing drama!, July 8, 2005
This is an antiestablishment film, focused on the alienation of the young and the bankruptcy of their lives. It's cruel, outrageous,bizarre and provocative portrait around two decadent characters who fornicate, steal and live according theor own behavior codes.
The plot enriches itself due the presence of the incandescnet beauty of Jeanne Moreau who stars a woman back in circulation after ten years of prison.
You may establish without any doubt this film is the French answer to Easy Rider but gifted with a major scope and conceptual complexity, because it trascends the anecdote.
The enviable cast and the masterful direction of this promising director Bertrand Blier who ewentually who would become in a status filmmaker and one of the most gifted dierctors of his generation.
Mature film from start to finish.!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
shocking and offensive but strangely lyrical and charming,, August 3, 2006
I had mixed feelings for "Les Valseuses" (1974) written and directed by Bertrand Blier when I started watching it but I ended up liking it. I would not call it vulgar ("Dumb and Dumber" is vulgar, "The Sweetest Thing" is both vulgar and unforgivably stupid); I would call it shocking and offensive. I can understand why many viewers, especially, the females would not like or even hate it. It is the epitome of misogyny (or so it seems), and the way two antiheroes treat every woman they'd meet seems unspeakable. But the more I think of it the more I realize that it somehow comes off as a delightful little gem. I am fascinated how Blier was able to get away with it. The movie is very entertaining and highly enjoyable: it is well written, the acting by all is first - class, and the music is sweet and melancholic. Actually, when I think of it, two buddies had done something good to the women they came across to: they prepared a woman in the train (the lovely, docile blonde Brigitte Fossey who started her movie career with one of the most impressive debuts in René Clément's "Forbidden Games"(1952) at age 6) for the meeting with her husband whom she had not seen for two months; they found a man who was finally able to get a frigid Marie-Ange (Miou-Miou) exited and satisfied; they enlightened and educated young and very willing Isabelle Huppert (in one of her early screen appearances.) Their encounter with Jeanne Moreau elevates this comedy to the tragic level. In short, I am not sure I'd like to meet Gérard Depardieu's Jean-Claude and Patrick Dewaere's Pierrot in real life and invite them over for dinner but I had a good time watching the movie and two hours almost flew - it was never boring.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genet would approve of this farce. And keep this in mind: it is a farce., October 5, 2008
How come no one told me of this movie, huh? I'm shocked that such a phenomenal movie could go under the radar for so long for me...and I'm 42. I mean I know it is a french film but there is just no excuse for this film not to be a household word universally, especially among cinephiles.
That being said. Damn, what surprise and pleasure to stumble onto this. It's anarchic (nothing is owned, everything is "shared"; brutal humanism), hedonistic, spiked with black humor, and underlined with existential positivity. If all is vanity, the fight for rich life beyond rutted conventions is heroic if not divine. As two juvenile, and what AT FIRST seems to be misogynist, men bounce from trouble to trouble, with no regard for the future or the past, it reveals a philosophy that underscores every moment. It's life intensely lived and lived for its own sake. Anything related to death or fear, they bewilderedly mourn and turn away from. I personally find this the most life-affirming film I think I've ever scene. One critic called it a "hymn of life". Forget Spielberg and his life-draining sentimentality.
It's childish and absurd but not fatuous; it's sexist in that gender roles are defined and yet unafraid to go beyond them; it's exploitive and illuminating; it's repulsive and seductive.
Its an affront to a life of passivity!
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