Les contrebandières

As a cinephile and critic, Moullet was well aware of the key role played by natural settings in certain kinds of films (silent Scandinavia, the 5Os westerns of Anthony Mann) and as a keen fan of the mountainous Hautes Alpes department of his country, where his family had spent much time, he thus took full advantage of the opportunity for his second feature to make a low budget, termite style exploration of landscape which should be remembered along with Sjostrom and Mann I mentioned.Another,later film which comes to mind is Jarmusch's Dead Man, where there is a similar progression through a variety of settings which stand incongruously in quite a contrast to each other.Moullet plots his light hearted story of young women with illicit goods in such a way that the spectator can almost map out the terrain from point to point, the way say in Mann's Men in War we feel we know the exact layout of each action.and he would pursue such a charting of Hautes Alpes spots even further with his A Girl is a Gun, adding color and widescreen to the mix.The viewer of these films is sorely tempted to get on the next flight to the French Alps and hike up these mountain locations for real.

The summary is clearly an understatement, as I thoroughly disliked the film and felt it was pretty much a waste of my time. Why I continued watching to the end, I have no idea.

The film is about a smuggler and his two girlfriends. I could try to say more about the plot, but frankly it just didn't make sense--such as calling a horse 'Fido' and making comments about how easy the walk now would be as they approached an almost impenetrable wall. I think this was all supposed to be clever....it wasn't. The characters never talked to each other--you could just hear their voices narrating to the audience.

Luc Moullet wrote and directed this odd film. Like so many French New Wave folks, he got his start as a critic with the magazine "Les Cahiers du Cinéma". And, like some of these folks, Moullet seemed to like making Absurdist films--movies that made no sense and never tried to. These people were deliberately defying conventions in film making. Some directors did so very well--some certainly did not. Now such a film could be good if it had a better sense of humor (such as following up better with the Union for smugglers). Sadly, this one just had me hoping SOMETHING would happen to make it all worth while. Even the nude scene was unsatisfying--as it showed nothing and at least the nudity could have made it all worth seeing.

I guess I am stupid--I want films to have some entertainment value.