Film Review
Le mari de la coiffeuse, one of Patrice Leconte's best films, is a delicate
existentialist portrait of passion, in which the need to love and be loved is shown to
be every bit as vital as eating and breathing. The sumptuous moody photography conveys
a whole range of conflicting moods, drawing the spectator willingly into the emotionally
insecure but irresistible universe of a hairdresser and her husband.
The golden sunlight of idyllic happiness which bathes much of the film hides but does
not obliterate the shadow of tragedy which surfaces towards the end. The unusual
and compelling cinematography transforms a barren narrative into a stunning work of art,
one in which Jean Rochefort and Anna Galiena mesmerise us, playing a couple whose sole
desire is to live for love and for love alone. An evocative and haunting work which
will have a marked effect on anyone who watches it.
© James Travers 2001
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Next Patrice Leconte film:
Tango (1993)
Film Synopsis
In middle-age, Antoine looks back on his life and recalls happy times when
he was a little boy holidaying in Luc-sur-Mer with his brother. How
he hated having to wear those woollen bathing costumes knitted for him by
his mother. Had she no respect for the peculiarities of the male anatomy?
Antoine takes more consolation from his lustful memories of Madame Shaeffer,
the plump hairdresser who first ignited his adolescent libido. His
earnest declaration that one day he would marry a hairdresser did not go
down well with his father. Thirty years later, Antoine would get to
fulfil his ambition, after meeting Mathilde, another hairdresser for whom
he developed a wild infatuation. Antoine proposed to her the first
time she cut his hair, but naturally she refused.
The next time Antoine made his offer, Mathilde couldn't turn him down again, so to avoid endless
requests for marriage every time her admirer came for a haircut, she happily
consented to be his wife. Of course the shock of this was enough to
put Antoine's father in his grave. His life's dream fulfilled, Antoine
could not have been happier during those years of marital bliss with his
seraphic hairdresser wife. They did fall out
once - over the merits of Fernand Raynaud - but they soon patched things
up and life resumed its idyllic, trouble-free course... until the terrible
day when it had to end. Mathilde could not bear to face the day when
her beloved's passion for her would turn cold, so after a final embrace they
parted in a storm. As the rains tumble in a sweet lament, Antoine is
left alone with his memories of the golden times when he was the hairdresser's
husband...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.