Loulou

french assholes...

The way Pialat frames Isabelle Huppert makes this film. The mystery and beauty and self-destructiveness all swirls throughout her performance. Through her, we are brought into a reflection on polite, elite society vs. rough-around-the-edges, passionate living. Is life really living for the moment, or does such an approach entail with it a fundamental death? The question is posed poignantly, and Piailat leaves it unresolved at the film's suggestive ending.

Viewed August 1, 2021. through the naturalism of the performances, the unpredictable staging, the disorderly openness of each scene (the intriguing details hinted at along the way, like the garbage hidden behind a screen in that one couple's apartment) Pialat works through the ambiguity of human emotion and decision-making.

Poor Isabelle. It is so bad to see how she had to endure all those terrible roles and directors during her early career.

bad movie

Not among Pialat's best, but nevertheless excellent movie bearing his trademark realism and complexity, and ultimately rather sad.

Perfectly aware of the high artistic value of this work I cannot overcome the strong repulsion towards basically everyone in this movie (despite the fact that Huppert and Depardieu are among my favorite actors), which takes away most of the pleasure. The French excel in depicting love as something less than sex rather than more like nobody else and this film is probably the highest point of this secret art.