Summary
Michel is a young man who works as a trainee operator in television, a temporary job before
his military service. He meets and becomes friendly with two young women,
Liliane and Juliette, aspiring actresses who lack the talent to land roles in anything
greater than mediocre TV ads. The three friends share a holiday in Corsica, which
will be Michel’s last break before being drafted into the French army, most probably to
fight in the war in Algeria.
Review
Adieu Philippine is Jacques Rozier’s first film and probably the one film which
captures most vividly the essence of the French New Wave. It is a film that exudes
the New Wave mentality in every scene, every shot. Out-Godarding Godard with
its frequent jump-cutting and introverted, self-referential humour, the film is charged
with an energy and sense of daring that seems to be the sheer embodiment of Truffaut and
Godard’s vision of the 1960s cinematic revolution. It is inexplicable that
a film which encapsulates so fully the spirit of the French new wave should be so overlooked
nowadays.
The history of the film is itself interesting. Adieu Philippine could not
have arrived at a better time for the proponents of the New Wave. Following the
box office failure in France of Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste, Godard’s Une
femme est une femme and Chabrol’s Les Godelureux, the New Wave looked set to
perish in its early infancy. Adieu Philippine was one of a number of films in 1962
which quickly managed to turn the tide and give the New Wave a sudden boost of popularity.
Whilst lacking in structure and having hardly any plot to speak of, Adieu Philippine
is a great film because it challenges, with brazen truculence, the old guard of French
cinema - the quality, studio-based films that Truffaut reviled so vehemently during his
time as a film critic in the 1950s. The film is as loud and colourful (even
in black and white), and the photography is quite stunning - particularly the scenes set
in the open Corsican landscapes.
Starting out in a bustling modern film studio, with 1920s jazz accompanying the frenzied
positioning of cameras and sets, we are instantly transported into an era which seems
so fresh, so full of life and energy. Rozier’s genius is to capture the essence
of the 1960s youth culture, replete with all its constraints, contradictions and difficulties,
and to create a truly incredible film that is engaging, funny and strangely melancholic.
© James Travers 2000
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