A Very Curious Girl (1969)

Touches You

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Again this is one you have to attempt to view in the context of the climate in which it was released; in 1969 the Sisterhood would have been all over this like a rash and Nelly Kaplan would have been well on the way to canonization for turning in this tale of a chauvinist's plaything/sex object turning the tables and 'empowering' herself and by extension downtrodden women everywhere. There's just one flaw in the ointment. Marie, aged somewhere around 20 has (presumably) been treated as a doormat in general and sex object for the pleasure of both the men of the village and at least one lesbian landowner. She lives with her mother in squalor, which is a hut with no electricity/running water on the outskirts of the village. One day the mother dies and a light goes on over Marie's head: she's through being the village bike for free, now they'll have to pay to lay. AND THEY DO! Why? She hasn't suddenly become proficient in karate, developed a genius level IQ, or metamorphosed into a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. Why would these men (and woman) who had been more or less raping her for years suddenly become pussycats and dance to her tune. They Wouldn't, of course; in reality they'd run her out of town on a rail BUT if you can accept this premise this is a neat little satire which hits 90 per cent of the targets it aims at and is funny with it.

...just as Manon des sources had done in Pagnol's film of 1952, to settle some old scores with the bigoted people in a small French town. The priest, the pharmacist, the bistro owner--they're all trying to cheat her in one way or another, and they all find her charms irresistible: no wonder, since she's played by Bernadette Lafont, the sexpot in so many films by Truffaut, Chabrol, Doniol-Valcroze, Molinaro etc. The story is flimsy, Kaplan's direction is loose and somewhat unfocused, and the viewer is left with the sense that this picture did not start a trend in French cinema (Bunuel, after all, was working the same vein at the time), nor is it the culmination of one.I haven't seen Nelly Kaplan's other films, and don't feel any loss. I think she was more of a theorist than an auteur. The film goes along agreeably enough, and Lafont and Michel Constantin make an attractive couple, but this is hardly essential viewing.

The story of a 'pirate' woman and social outcast of a provincial village. She turns to prostitution and seduces her clients into ruin. The themes of mockery remain strong, despite the common background of a small hut with bright colors in woodland. Greed and bigotry are present throughout, yet are refreshed with humorous characters and twists in the dialogue. The final blow for sexual and social revenge in humorous sequence struck in the church. The heroine (Bernadette Lafont) dances off down the open road, leaving behind the remains of a strange abstract sculpture of fridges, showers and junk, as she is portrayed as yet another 'free spirit'.

...but in 1969,she began to stand on her own two feet.And it was a masterstroke."La fiancée du pirate" was a highly successful movie which has stood the test of time quite well.Marie (Bernadette Laffont's vulgarity works wonders here) and her mother have always been outcasts ,living outside the village in a hut.Marie works on a farm where the lesbian farmer exploits her sexually and economically,and all the guys around treat her like a whore.When her mother dies,Marie does not want any religious funeral.Then begins Marie's revenge.Now she makes all the men from the village pay for her charms .She will turn all the hypocrite mean bourgeois's life upside town ,and her wholesale massacre comes to a head in the church where a tape recorder reveals the secrets ,warts an all.Nothing intellectual here,but a good sense of humor.It proves that sex can lead to (local) woman's lib.