Film Review
One of the last great flourishes of the French New Wave,
La Maman et la putain
is the most important film from director Jean Eustache, a potent and absorbing work featuring
three very different characters with very contrasting approaches to life and love. Truthful,
intelligent, sometimes witty, it is an engaging film which evokes the essence of Nouvelle
Vague cinema, with all its poetry, daring and honesty. The fact that Eustache should
choose to kill himself less than a decade after making this film adds a dark and sorrowful
footnote to what is by any standards a masterpiece.
The film features two much-loved icons of the French New Wave: Jean-Pierre Léaud -
best known as Antoine Doinel in François Truffaut's
Les 400 coups (1959) -
and Bernadette Lafont, who went wild in another Truffaut film,
Une belle fille comme moi (1972).
The trio is completed by Françoise Lebrun, an actress associated
with some of France's most committed auteur filmmakers - she
worked with Marguerite Duras on
India Song (1975),
Paul Vecchiali on
En haut des marches (1983)
and André Téchiné on
Souvenirs d'en France (1975).
Léaud is perfect casting for the role of the cultivated layabout Alexandre,
endlessly spouting empty philosophical discourses as if his life depended on it
(this is what happens if you work too often with Jean-Luc Godard).
Bernadette Lafont is Alexandre's bouncy sugar-mummy, giving a terrific
performance that alternates between bruised tenderness
and fiery jealousy. In contrast to her two charismatic co-stars, Françoise
Lebrun is far more understated, and consequently more enigmatic - she looks
like a fugitive from an Ingmar Bergman film.
Lebrun's character Veronika at first resembles the ideal partner - demure,
charming and generous. But then we begin to see her frustration with her far from idyllic
predicament. As the film develops, she develops a complex dual personality - a woman looking for a stable
relationship with a committed husband in one instance, then a drunken slut out for some
gratuitous hedonism in the next. (Bergman's
Persona (1966)
may conceivably have been an influence on Eustache when he made this film.)
At least Marie, Alexandre's other lover, is more consistent, demanding
though she is. Alexandre's inability to choose between the two women is
explored with depth, humour and pathos and ultimately encapsulates a fundamental
dichotomy in human relationships - the need for fulfilment through passion
set against an equal need for stability through commitment and parenthood.
Jean Eustache made one other notable film after this, the equally
perceptive
Mes petites amoureuses (1974).
© James Travers 2004
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Jean Eustache film:
Mes petites amoureuses (1974)
Film Synopsis
Alexandre is an unemployed intellectual who, having no money of his own, sponges off his
lover, Marie, with whom he lives. A devotee of classical music and existentialist
philosophy, Alexandre spends his days lost in thought or engaged in philosophical discussion
with his long-haired student friends. One day, he meets up with a former girlfriend,
Gilberte, and asks if she will marry him. When she refuses, Alexandre turns his
attention to another girl, a stranger, whom he sees sitting alone in a café.
When they meet up subsequently, the girl, Veronika, takes a liking to the talkative young
philosopher, and it is a short while before they are in bed together. When Alexandre's
other lover, Marie, finds out, she is angry, but still attaches herself to her toy-boy.
Soon, Alexandre discovers that he has fallen in love with two women, both of whom are
deeply in love with him, and both of whom are jealous of the other woman. How is
he to resolve this impossible dilemma?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.