Les Biches

Chabrol may be a bit of an acquired taste but once you're familiar with his films he never disappoints. One of his best.

After I had 2 poor experiences with Pathfinder Studios dvds I stay away from movies edited by them. Now, in an attempt to trick customers, the studio listed for the copy I bought is listed as Jack H. Harris Enterprises, but when I played the dvd I noticed it starts with the Pathfinder Studios logo. This is more than unacceptable. I will definitely return this and I certainly advise anyone to check the Studio.

Frederique (Audran, 35 in this film), is a wealthy woman trolling the streets of Paris looking for young women to seduce. Why (Sassard, 27 in this film) is a starving artist who earns a living drawing pictures of does (hence the film's title, which also means young women, so "Bad Girls" is a complete mistranslation) on sidewalks. They meet by accident, become friends and eventually lovers.Frederique has a house in the south of France where she takes Why to solidify the relationship and achieve exclusivity with a beautiful young woman. What follows is a Garden of Eden sort of thing -- the Eve and Eve version -- until Adam shows up as Paul to gum up the works (Trintignant and Audran's real-life husband before Chabrol), an architect, who initially is quite smitten with Why (who wouldn't be?). Paul and Why have an affair that he treats as a casual fling, but she develops strong feelings for him while still in love with Frederique. Frederique also falls for Paul, whose socio-economic status is on the same level, and the feeling is mutual. They become lovers, which raises the conundrum how to push Why out of their lives because Frederique's passion for same gender relationships seems apparently to have been erased by Paul -- something that could have been worked out more fully, but then Audran married this guy in real life, which may have been Chabrol's idea of a joke ... Why won't be pushed, however, and the film has a tragic ending, which I won't reveal so as not to spoil the fun.The ending is clever because it raises a host of important questions left to the viewer to decide, which is why (no pun intended) this is such an interesting film and so different from the tripe that Hollywood dishes out, where everything is delivered as a neatly wrapped package with no loose ends. Chabrol will have none of it because he knows that film stories will seem phony and artificial and superficial unless they mirror real life to a large extent, where resolution is not always achieved, things are seldom easy to predict in the long or even medium term, the law of unintended consequences rules more often than not, and we don't always live happily ever after as in fairy tales (again, no pun intended) like the Garden of Eden and such.Bravo.P.S. The DVD comes with voice-over commentary by a couple of critics, chatty, full of film-buff trivia, and largely beside the point. No need to turn it on.

Many American reviewers (though not all, thankfully) seem completely baffled by this wonderful sample of French sense and sensibility. Some think it is funny. I couldn't detect anything funny about it. Some say it is not erotic. To me it seemed exceptionally erotic. Others find it dull and boring. Tant pis for them.Occasionally Chabrol is said to be "The French Hitchcock". However, the subtlety and penetration of Chabrol's presentation and analytic understanding of the psychology of his characters is far superior to anything by Hitchcock, perhaps because Chabrol is unencumbered by the simplistic trammels of Freudianism. The suspense lies in how the increasingly impossible tangle of the relationships is going to be resolved. The straightforward solution would be for Why to shake herself away from the hothouse she has entered; but here the underlying factor takes over: the atmosphere of wealth, ease and gratification has irrevocably seduced her. Corruption of innocence and simplicity appears to be a persistent theme of Chabrol's, from Les Cousins onward. Those who cannot cope are put through hell before they are destroyed.Almost all the brief summaries of this exceedingly complex film, including the one on the dvd cover, are highly misleading. It defies easy explanation. Whose actions are right and whose are wrong as the events unfold? Each of the three main characters acts with a natural selfishness, but what exactly are their underlying motivations? Why does Frederique seduce Paul? Why does Paul ditch Why? What does Why hope to gain by staying on? Are any of them actually capable of loving another person? Is homosexuality merely an extreme form of narcissism?

Brittle, complicated,timeless on the one hand yet definitely of a time on the other, Claude Chabrol's sublime "Les Biches" (not what you think, btw...but meaning "The Does" as in a female deer), released in 1968 resonates with subtext and reverberates with thought and meaning from which several subsequent directors have shamelessly borrowed: particularly Robert Altman in his much maligned, though glorious "Three Women" and Barbet Schroeder's more pedestrian "Single White Female."Frederique (the iconic Stephane Audran) is rich, bored, mostly gay and looking for diversion when she comes upon street artist Why (Jacqueline Sasssard...and yes that is her name) who draws chalk Does on the Paris streets, is homeless, begs for money and sleeps with whomever can offer her a bed for the night. F is more than eager to offer Why a bed, a home in St. Tropez and a life filled with luxuries. But what Frederique is not willing to offer Why is her freedom. F is the master/hunter and Why is the slave/prey: or is it vice versa as throughout this film their roles change,flip then flop then flip again.Chabrol is dealing with so many things here: the ability to receive or give love unselfishly, the doubling or taking on the persona (shades of Bergman's "Persona") of the object of your love, the stain and ruin of jealousy and on and on."Les Biches" is simple and stubbornly straightforward on one level yet feverishly complicated on most. Is Love hard as a *itch or soft as a Doe? Look elsewhere if you are looking for the easy answer: You won't find it in "Les Biches."

bon film

Nice movie