La Fille coupée en deux (2007) directed by CLAUDE CHABROL

La Fille coupée en deux (2007) directed by CLAUDE CHABROL

Postby CAP » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:58 am

Yeah a little Claire Denis goes a long way. Breillat’s stuff is not as pictorially appealing, but maybe more of a thesis or two driving things. Does that appeal to my inner feminist? Are you kidding? My inner fem gets about as far as Pascale Ferran’s version of Lady Chatterley. Now that was hot! Apart from all the talking at the end, which was really fem. But… you know… you have to go along with that stuff at a certain point, right? Relationships... oh yeah.

I give that one 10.

So anyway the other night I watched Chabrol’s La Fille coupée en deux (A Girl Cut in Two - 2007) supposedly a comedy of manners starring hottie Ludivine Sagnier. She seems to be in every second French film made these days. There’s something odd about her right eye, actually, don’t you think? I’m sure that’s part of the turn-on. But this one is really about Lyons old money decadence when petit bourgeois Sagnier falls under the spell of successful writer and establishment sleaze played by Francois Berléand (I always forget the names of the characters, in Francois’ case I think of him as just Lucky Bastard) and Ludi is led to kinky ends by her devotion for him. Like I say, Lucky Bastard. Of course this is clearly a fantasy scenario if my acquaintance with French women is anything to go by, which it’s probably not. Then again I’m not haute bourgeois - as you may have suspected. Anyway Sagnier’s hair looks spectacularly blonde here for some reason. Honestly I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I just sat there going “Wow!” in shot after shot. Well, most of the time... And the couturiers’ credits are impressive. All the women have elegant, tasteful wardrobes for every occasion (again this seemed some distance from reality for me). Jeez. that old Claude though, he’s like royalty these days.

Anyway the twist in this one is when Ludi’s new husband murders Lucky Bastard out of jealousy or just craziness but his old dragon of a mother puts the squeeze on Ludi to testify that Lucky Bastard was pure evil so that her son will get a softer sentence (the guy’s a classic playboy/tosser actually). French justice eh? Alors! for the in-laws. Maybe that’s where the comedy really steps up. The bait is that the family will see struggling (gold-digging?) Ludi alright for her efforts, but of course no sooner has she testified that she did naughty things for Lucky Bastard, than playboy/tosser files for divorce on grounds of public humiliation following her court disclosure and refuses to even see her when she visits him in his swank prison for rich losers. And she a hot blonde! She then swings by Old Dragon’s castle where (in a scene that rang totally true for me) she is assured she won’t see a penny of the family fortune in any settlement. And that’s for being a slutsky babe! And she – babelicious and a blonde! Mon Dieu! This would be tragedy except that it’s a Chabrol film where everyone’s got at least eleven angles and no one can tell where the last laugh is coming from.

I give it a six. But I’m currently in a Bertrand Blier phase. :)
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