Loulou (Widescreen) [Import]

Director Maurice Pialat's film is more an exercise in star power than any presentation of narrative, with Isabelle Huppert leaving her husband Guy Marchand for the leather-clad ex-con ruffian Loulou played by Depardieu. Even though the tone takes its cue from the character of Loulou as a womanising drifter, the low key seemingly improvised rambling scenes are preferable to the gab-fests of Eric Rohmer, who is responsible for the negative connotations associated with French films by Americans. This film is actually mistitled since although it is Depardieu that is the catalyst for Huppert to change her life, the story is more hers than his. Or perhaps it is that the representation of her crumbling marriage that is more dramatically interesting than Depardieu's "loafing". If Loulou's character is sketched thinly that may to keep him as an enigma, the mysterious bad-boy that women always seem to prefer. At one point Huppert says of Depardieu, "I prefer a loafer who f**ks, to a rich guy who bugs me". And although we can see how limiting Depardieu's world is to Huppert, we also understand her attraction to him, highlighted by a silent image of the couple stumbling down a street in a drunken embrace. Pialat's best moments involve scenes of violence outbursts - a family get together soured by jealousy, the loud music of a disco drowning out shouting, and a brawl between Depardieu and Marchand in a courtyard with a following drink together as evidence of the French form of civilised behaviour. Huppert also has an early scene with Marchand where the camera follows his pursuit and humiliation of her, and here Huppert's anger invalidates the myth of her as a passive performer. The film also shows us footage of her laughing, which is unusual since her situations are usually so glum, and she is funny when she yells in shocked reaction to being hit, in the famous love scene where the bed collapses, and when she falls in the street by accident. Pialat also gives Marchand a laugh by having him resort to playing the saxophone in depression.

This movie goes back to the early Eighties and I still remember it, since I went to watch it three times within a few days. It was probably due to the scene where the bed crashes down. It is one of the films of the young Depardieu in couple with Isabelle Huppert and with an excellent Maurice Pialat directing it. In reality nothing really important happens, but the love scenes are nice. Depardieu plays a young guy who is rather happy without being fixed up in regular work and Isabelle Hupper leaves her husband to stay with him. She earns their living and also decides to abort, since Depardieu only wants to work after the birth of the child. This is also the sad fact about the movie that in reality does not have an end. There is also a nice scene with an open air dinner, much fun and lots to eat and to drink.

That's a better title than the one they went with, which refers to the character played by Depardieu, because the film is about Huppert's character, who is 25 in this film and already an accomplished actress.

This film, like most dramatic films (and even some comedies), is about poor choices and their consequences. Nelly clearly made a bad decision marrying Andre, a boring, jealous, possessive jerk who overreacts and becomes violent when she so much as looks at other men. Andre may or may not love Nelly but he clearly has no clue what she needs or how she wants to be loved.

Small wonder that Nelly is fed up and dumps Andre. But for womanizing bad boy Loulou, just our of prison, with no visible means of support, and still involved in silly heists with his criminal pals? Hmmmm ...

But wait! It gets better ... um ... worse: Loulou gets Nelly pregnant. Apparently, both missed the class in high school where they tell you about safe sex, or just plain don't care. What happens to the pregnancy is predictable after Nelly visits Loulou's family and realizes this "package deal" is not an improvement over life with Andre -- though I would say the film understates the effect of the abortion on Nelly. There is no happy ending; quite the contrary, we are left with the clear impression Nelly's life will be, as Hobbes says, "nasty, brutish, and short." What is a woman to do? Yes, indeed.

A brief word about the subtitles: They are bare bones; not wrong, mind you, just leave out subtleties that would have added context to the story.