Desideri nel sole

This is a very uneasy amalgam of a satire on the French television industry (the production of a cheap show called Montserrat), a commentary on French society (the dinner scene with Michel's family spouting slogans), and an improbable travelogue on Corsica. Since it does not--could not--hang together to form a unified work, my rating is lower than it might be.

The acting is first rate especially the two young women, Liliane and Juliette, who act with an impressive naturalness. Vittorio Caprioli is excellent as the oily and fairly stupid Pachali, a man who promises everything and delivers nothing. I'm left with the feeling that if Jacques Rozier could have kept to a central theme when writing the scenario the movie would have been really memorable, in the way of the first two Doinel films of Truffaut, or Godard's Bande a part.

At times, this feels like a documentary, or some kind of home movie where the director said "you guys just do some stuff, I'll keep rolling and we'll tart it up in the edit". At others, it's really quite entertaining (such as the filming of the igloo commercial). However, for me, it was just too episodic and, frankly, went on far too long such that by the end I was just bored. The acting wasn't bad (and in places very good), but it felt like they didn't really have much to work with, and the tone and lighting was all over the place - so I'm not that surprised that I haven't heard of this director before. Of its time, I guess.

"These brutal dances reflect modern youth's cold-heartedness."

Despite liking the style of this film and how it put me in Paris and then beautiful Corsica in the 1960's, I could never connect to these characters, and found my interest waning over its second half. It's a love triangle between two women and a man who tells them he hasn't decided which one he wants, yet somehow they're still smitten with him. Quite a bit of the footage is documentary-like, e.g. Behind the scenes in the filming of a television show, or watching the French partying in Corsica, but those things didn't appeal to me much.

Hanging over all of the frivolous events is the fact that the man has been drafted and must eventually report to serve in the Algerian War, so the title, a reference to a childhood game, could also be seen as the goodbye to youth that comes with that. I just wish Jacques Rozier had given me more of a reason to care for him before that happened. Instead we see him taking advantage of his family and buying a stake in a car with his buddies instead of supporting them, be rude to his boss to get himself suspended after he made a mistake on the job, be arrogant with the two women, and leave a stranded Corsican in the middle of nowhere.

There is a spontaneity to how this is filmed which is mostly a positive, but the spontaneity in the plotting made it feel a little half-baked. The ending sequence, literally 6+ minutes of footage of the guy getting on a boat bound for Marseilles and then it pulling out, was far too long. I might have rated this slightly higher on another night, but would certainly recommend Truffaut's Jules et Jim from the same year instead.

This is indeed "nouvelle vague" in ways many other films of the time claimed to be but really weren't. The "innocent" onlookers on the side look at the camera, the dialog seems improvised to a large degree and the actors/actresses "introduced" were for the main part never heard from again. There's not really much of a plot as there were in many N.V products and at times it feels invented as it was made. The comedy throughout and the joyful music lighten the restrictions (and making it seem more 'nouvelle vague") but there are several elements just below the surface which are in sharp contrast. Two girls who swore fidelity in friendship are torn apart, the young protagonist is off the fight a very unpopular war, the young man who refuses to talk about his experiences fighting in Algeria... The film survives as an historical document of new ideas in French film-making of the time and as such rather severely dates itself. It's easy to understand why it was so popular when it was made but that fact works against it decades later.

With A bout de Soufflé (and other Godard films), Adieu Philippine is in fact the only film that deserves the 'Nouvelle Vague' label term and that kept the promises of this generation, of a new way to approach cinema. (Truffaut looks very classical in comparison). A real liberation of the cinema's language : variation of feelings, tones (sentimental comedy, Algerian tragedy, boulevard, etc...) on the screen followed by variations of technique's shooting (television, improvisation, etc...), of montage or setting, a jubilating firework as an hymn to joy of life, imagination. For this and other points, Adieu Philippine has the role in French cinematography that in Italy Otto e mezzo may have played though in another way and much more secretly. Rarely characters have been given such importance, such vibration in every day's little things. The close-up on a young 'stupid' girl's despair dancing face to you is one of the numerous unforgettable moments of this still refreshing poem sometimes worried by the threat of death.