Henri Calef was one of the best French directors in the years which followed the end of WW2.Like so many veterans of the Pre-NW days trapped in the sixties /seventies,he had no idea how to relate to his former audience.This "impossible" come back in 1973 sees him going hip,using the trendy slang and succumbing more than a decade later to the N.W. vices: youth cult,life of leisure ,desirable mansions ,inflated egos and uninteresting characters contemplating their navel.And something worse: a vague desultory script ,which is a shame for someone who had been brilliant ("Les Eaux Troubles" )
And the subject ,however,could have been absorbing,had it been given an adequate treatment.An idle couple spends their time boating on the river,sunbathing and making love.The only snag is that he has got an over possessive mom who treats him like a child and who cannot stand her daughter-in-law.Enter a beautiful girl with whom the wife falls in love.Hence the title (a nod to Godard's "Masculin-Féminin"?who knows?) for the movie essentially depicts a lesbian relationship ,which of course will have a bad end ,in the grand tradition of "the children's hour" or "the fox" ;unfortunately "Feminin-Feminin" is no match for the two sixties works.As the avant-guard "artist" says,"it can't last,it is against nature(sic)!"
Even Calef's technical competence is at question when you see his ridiculous flashback depicting Marie Hélène 's past.
The cast is aberrant ;you can prefer Marie -France Pisier in another part of a lesbian in love with Romy Schneider ("La Banquière");Olga Georges Picot ,after a mainstream career in the second half of the sixties ,specialized in porno in the seventies and prematurely died in the nineties.Pierre Brice ,the French actor nobody knows in France but everybody loves in Germany seems completely lost.Let's be nice for the "artist" "played" by the late "singer" Carlos.
And the subject ,however,could have been absorbing,had it been given an adequate treatment.An idle couple spends their time boating on the river,sunbathing and making love.The only snag is that he has got an over possessive mom who treats him like a child and who cannot stand her daughter-in-law.Enter a beautiful girl with whom the wife falls in love.Hence the title (a nod to Godard's "Masculin-Féminin"?who knows?) for the movie essentially depicts a lesbian relationship ,which of course will have a bad end ,in the grand tradition of "the children's hour" or "the fox" ;unfortunately "Feminin-Feminin" is no match for the two sixties works.As the avant-guard "artist" says,"it can't last,it is against nature(sic)!"
Even Calef's technical competence is at question when you see his ridiculous flashback depicting Marie Hélène 's past.
The cast is aberrant ;you can prefer Marie -France Pisier in another part of a lesbian in love with Romy Schneider ("La Banquière");Olga Georges Picot ,after a mainstream career in the second half of the sixties ,specialized in porno in the seventies and prematurely died in the nineties.Pierre Brice ,the French actor nobody knows in France but everybody loves in Germany seems completely lost.Let's be nice for the "artist" "played" by the late "singer" Carlos.
