A
brutally satirical film somewhat reminiscent of the works of
Luis Bunuel, this was Jean-Luc Godard's most ambitious and
vociferous "revolutionary" movie before he retired to the
shelter of the Dziga-Vertov group. It's full of funny
anti-bourgeois set pieces including one of the great
sequences in all cinema: a full reel, ten-minute tracking
shot that proceeds with a stately pace past a very, very
long line of stalled automobiles on a French country highway
lined with poplars.
This mind boggling film
stacks analogy upon analogy and allegory upon allegory with
hallucinatory fervor in an episodic odyssey of an
unpleasant
upper-class Parisian pair out for a weekend trip to visit
the wife's mother. Opening with a psychiatric-session
monologue by the delicate Corinne (Mireille Darc), clad only
in panties and perched first on a desk, then on a
refrigerator as she hesitantly describes a sexual encounter
involving an egg and an orifice, the movie quickly moves to
the carnage of the roadways during a sunny weekend. A
bumper-to-bumper carnival of cars ensues, honking,
careening, crashing, overturning, and burning along with
their grotesque occupants as Corinne and Roland (Jean Yanne)
proceed on their trip. Along the way social values regarding
sex, consumerism, and family are explored in myriad surreal
ways. The final result can be viewed as a darkly funny
vision of Hell that culminates in one possible brave new
world. One of the essential films of the 1960s.
-- capsule taken in part from iGuide
Review
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Cast:
Mireille Darc
Jean Yanne
Daniel Pommereulle
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Virginie Vignon
Georges Staquet
Juliet Berto
Blandine Jeanson
Yves Afonso
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Corinne
Roland
Joseph Balsamo
Saint-Just/Man in Phone Booth
Marie-Madeleine
Tractor Driver
Woman in Car Crash
Emily Bronte/Girl in Farmyard
Tom Thumb
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