Violette & François (1977)

Violette & François is a French crime film first released in 1977, directed by Jacques Rouffio.  The film stars Isabelle Adjani, Jacques Dutronc, Serge Reggiani and Françoise Arnoul.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Violette loses her job in a bank after a heated argument with her boss.   Her good-for-nothing boyfriend François is unable to hold a job down for more than a few days and so is unable to make up the shortfall in their household income.  With  bills to pay and mouths to feed (including that of their eighteen month baby), the couple realise that they must do something, so they decide to take up shoplifting as a profession.  At first, Violette and François prove to be remarkably adept in their new life of crime.  But then Violette is caught red-handed and the game is over.  Or is it...?

Very much a film of its time, Violette & François is both a veiled attack on consumerism and a fairly pungent comment on the moral decline in contemporary society.  It condemns both individuals who are unable or unwilling to live up to their adult responsibilities and the state for offering few solutions other than to lock up those who refuse to conform.  In contrast to some of the decade’s bleaker depictions of the downside of the consumer revolution, this film adopts a tongue-in-cheek tone and presents its heroes (played with great charm and élan by Isabelle Adjani and Jacques Dutronc) as a latterday Bonnie and Clyde who spend their days raiding Parisian department stories.  Amidst the abundance of off-the-wall humour there is a serious side to this film, which touches on genuine concerns about the effect that materialism has on the values of the children of the consumer age.  Director Jacques Rouffio would stay with the anti-capitalist theme for his next film Le Sucre (1978), which offered an even more scathing attack on speculation and corporate finance.

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