Thursday 29 December 2022

La Fille aux Yeux D'Or (1961 Jean-Gabriel Albicocco)

Supposedly some relation to Balzac, written by Pierre Pelegri and Phillippe Dumarcay.

A horrible, boorish man pursues an enigmatic woman and they play mind games when he isn't shouting his head off at her or hitting her. He confesses to his older partner / lover that he loves the girl, so she kills her. I wonder if an in-depth knowledge of Balzac would help with any of this because I found all the characters repellent and vile, and such dialogue as "It's your duck that made the surface" pretentious and unintelligible. Luckily the performances are good, the direction and photography are good, there are certain moments of tremendous beauty (e.g. her apartment being full of birds) and the Spanish guitar music adds a certain something. Plus it's always nice to see early sixties Paris in black and white.

It's photographed by Quinto Albicocco, the music's by Narciso Yepes and the editor is Georges Klotz. Francoise Dorleac is in it but I didn't notice her.




So a real mixed bag, or duck, if you prefer.

It's somehow perverse and contradictory, and in that regard, very French.

Well, there it is.

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