Das Ruhekissen

This film seems like more than just a film, it looks and feels like what it would have really have been like to have Brigitte Bardot as your companion in life, for better and for a lot worse, as relationships go. Qualities such as loyalty, caring, warmth, tenderness, understanding, devotion, etc. endlessly flow from her to her suicidal, live-in lover, as time and again she brings him back from the depths of despair and self-destruction, to temporary recovery in her arms.

All this, however, serves to make him even more miserable, in the best masochistic tradition, as he falls even more deeply into his alcoholic albatross, rather than face real life responsibility as a sober, productive man with a good woman by his side.

Bardot exudes the utmost maturity and restraint in taking the best cheap shots this ungrateful con-artist, female user, and abusive man (Robert Hossein, in an outstanding interpretation of a difficult role) can dump on her. The problem here is universal in scope in that it portrays two people who are physically attracted to each other, to the point of addiction, while at the same time a classic mis-match from a values and a psychological perspective. "You always hurt the one you love," was never more in evidence than for the 102 emotion-draining minutes of this film. Clearly a Vadim masterpiece, and a triumphant collaboration with Bardot, long after their real-life divorce and her remarriage. This represents "professionalism" to the highest degree.

"Love On a Pillow" is a dubbed French film starring Brigitte Bardot at her most beautiful and alluring. An existentialist writer, artist, and musician from Paris attempts suicide in Dijon. He is saved when a lovely young Parisian girl, in town to claim a substantial inheritance left her by a rich aunt, mistakenly opens his hotel room door and finds him near death from an overdose of sleeping pills. Thereafter, he becomes her responsibility, they fall in love, and his abject alcoholism and stubborn cynicism both torment and liberate her. In the process, we see her transformed from an attractive young woman into a sexy beat hipster, and finally into a ravishing goddess who defines feminine beauty. It is very evident in this film why Bardot was considered one of the most captivating actresses of the early sixties. Particularly toward the end of the movie, there are closeups of her that take your breath away. The film's setting is very interesting, as well -- among artists and jazz musicians in Paris in the early sixties. The score is simple but ethereal. There is one touching scene in a café in Florence where the lovers are momentarily content and at peace. A guitarist approaches their table singing a pretty Italian love ballad. The man appears annoyed, then in a sudden outburst, chases away the musician because "that song has memories." The incident may reveal what is really bothering him. At the conclusion, the film's understated score moves to a poignant crescendo. "Love On a Pillow" is not just a beautiful film. It is easily Bardot's finest effort.

When the Parisian bourgeois Geneviève Le Theil (Brigitte Bardot) travels to Dijon to resolve issues in the inheritance left by her wealthy aunt, she mistakenly opens the door of another room in the hotel, finding a suicidal near death on the bed. Later Geneviève goes to the hospital and is introduced to Renaud Sarti (Robert Hossein), the nihilistic alcoholic vagrant she saved. Geneviève falls in love for Renaud and brings him to her apartment in Paris, initiating a destructive, masochistic and corrupt relationship with the abusive man.

"Le Repôs du Guerrier" has a great premise – a conservative woman falling in love for a destructive man that corrupts her in a masochist relationship. The story is long, disclosing many abusive and humiliating situations that Geneviève is exposed in an erotic way, considering that this is a movie of 1962. For example, the orgy in Katov's apartment is not explicit but it is very clear that the participants are having sex, using drugs and drinking booze. However, Roger Vadim's option for a corny conclusion gives the sensation of a melodramatic soap-opera and spoils the dramatic and crude romance. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Repouso do Guerreiro" ("The Warrior's Rest")

While their short-lived marriage was long gone, this is the fourth of five Roger Vadim/Brigitte Bardot collaborations and only the second I've watched myself. After opening in a light comedy vein, this rather scrappy film turns into an unappetizingly ponderous melodrama on the lines of LA DOLCE VITA (1960), complete with a risibly "beat" orgy sequence and a surfeit of pretentious chat; nevertheless, the whole is somewhat redeemed by the attractive Italian locations in its second half and the nice musical score throughout.

For what it's worth, it tells of a bourgeois girl (Bardot) – shortly to be married to an unassuming young man – travelling from Paris to Dijon to hear the will of her late aunt, who accidentally stumbles on the suicide attempt of a bohemian, pulp-thriller-loving misanthrope (Robert Hossein) who, upon recovering, literally turns her life upside down. The cast is completed by James Robertson Justice (as Hossein's sculptor friend), Macha Meril (as Robertson's tramp companion) and, in one sequence, Michel Serrault as a notary.

In the end, the original title of THE WARRIOR'S REST sounds far more interesting that what's on offer here and the fact that I was misinformed about the film's running time – I thought it was a good 22 minutes shorter! – did not help to earn it much affection from my end. But, then, the sight of Bardot in her prime (and, Vadim being Vadim, in various stages of undress as well) is always welcome...

One of the few mainstream films I ever saw dealing with a manic-depressive. Which is a disease, the guy is not "just crazy" or "abusive". Anybody who knows about depressions (clinical) will appreciate the film. Of course it is not perfect, her falling in love with him could have been done a bit more believable, Vadim is no Antonioni, but still I like it a lot.

In the USA Easy Rider was one of the first films where people smoked pot ("without raping a nurse" as Dennis Hopper stated), Vadim showed it almost 6 years earlier! He was quite hip and brave to make the film, dealing with a mental disease which is still under the carpet 50+ years later, in the first place. Not many people care for depressive persons. His ex-wife BB had some understanding as well of course, she tried to kill herself a year before the film was made.