Based on his own novel, Melvin Van Peebles' calling card as a director - made in France at the tail end of the nouvelle vague - owes more to Lelouch than Godard.
Van Peebles enterprisingly shows all the unsympathetic characters (including nearly all the white characters and his sarcastic alter ego seen in the mirror) using a subjective camera. Unfortunately this also includes a clucking coven of black women, the only really sympathetic character once more being an attractive and obliging white woman (played by the late Nicole Berger) he picks up and with whom he enjoys a weekend of love; a convention that would have drawn approbation had it been practised by a white director.
Van Peebles enterprisingly shows all the unsympathetic characters (including nearly all the white characters and his sarcastic alter ego seen in the mirror) using a subjective camera. Unfortunately this also includes a clucking coven of black women, the only really sympathetic character once more being an attractive and obliging white woman (played by the late Nicole Berger) he picks up and with whom he enjoys a weekend of love; a convention that would have drawn approbation had it been practised by a white director.