The Mother and the Whore (Criterion Collection) [DVD]

The loves of an irresponsible Parisian youth with leftist intellectual affections provides the basis of this intense, devastating character study. In many ways, Alexandre, the protagonist, symbolizes the sense of alienation and anguished self-blame espoused by the post-war existentialists. Yet, in other regards, Alexandre is also a harbinger of materialism, the resulting idealistic void of the early 1970s in which the story is set. Leaud decides that he desperately needs a wife and so leaves the lover he has been living with, and sponging off of, to propose to his ex-girlfriend. He frequently thinks of himself as a literary character, and it is in this mode that he embarks upon a long-winded, pompous discussion before actually popping the question. His self-absorbed pseudo-intellectual ramblings turn her off, and she coldly turns him down. The same day, he finds another woman, and they arrange a meeting later that night. She turns out to be a night nurse whose only real passions are alcohol and impersonal sex. During their brief affair, she patiently listens to Alexandre's incessant talking, surprised to find herself falling for him. She later involves herself with both Alexandre and his live-in lover. This results in tragedy and painful self-revelation. The film was the first major effort of promising young filmmaker Jean Eustache, and its stark realism and deep character analysis marked a new direction for French cinema which for the past decade had been dominated by the Nouvelle Vague school espoused by such directors as Chabrol, Godard, and Rohmer.