This one came as a huge surprise to me. It seems almost forgotten, while 'in those days' half of France was glued to the TV screens.
A ground-breaking movie, at least for those days, and still for today. A lot of different layers, especially the anti-war side of it, has taken me in, today, in 2024, with the war in Ukraine. In 1980 and 1990 we were confident that the times of wars was over, in Europe, for eternity. This series reflects it; depicts war as something of the past. And it doesn't show the atrocities at the front, rather the life of a bourgeois place, close to the coast, in the hinterland.
Intertwined we experience an almost brutal implosion of that bourgeois society; and a likewise explosion of feminist individualism. (The latter actually was the major intention of the director.) From the 'women in the shadow of the man' of pre WW-I, we can follow emancipating women from all levels of that rural society. Blanche as most happy servant and naive girl through to a very determined and self-assured person, stating "I can never ever be a servant again!". Actually, nobody has changed more than Blanche during the series. Georgette, from servant to pretending to be standing above the rest by giving up her body to the rich. Until she fell (almost unbelievable, though) in love with a young lover, to just pass time. Mad with love, literally.
The heroine, Funny, can't change THAT much, in comparison to Blanche, since she stems from a bourgeoise family. And yet, we can by observing her see that the old role model of the woman is breaking down and falls apart.
Later, and earlier in cinema, Jean Renoir described the breakdown of the bourgeoise society in his "La Grande Illusion".
Love can't be missing, why actually?, and we see a love triangle developing around Funny. And the torments that develop from the new role of the 'woman in emancipation'. Why I usually am suspicious of 'feminist' movies, here I am not. The woman are not depicted in a 'woke' sense; like they were 'better beings'. Rather, we see a bunch of lovable and caring as well as heartless - up to despicable - characters.
As I wrote above, the woman come out of the conventional closet. The grandma is lovable, funny, determined, Funny is attractive, though very indecisive and almost self-centered, Blanche is the uneducated, most lovable of all. The wife of Louis Hérart is the worst, a totally self-centered person. She displays horrible attitudes. Something, that movies of now, 50 years later, often try to avoid, and rather celebrate against masculine toxicity.
I can't rate the series higher, alas, since there is just a too high density of tristesse. (Dear Nina Companeez, we will believe your message, also without painting duplicate layers of suffering.)
And, sorry to say, too much Funny Ardent. Despite of her deserving a '10' easily here, we could have done with more 'les dames de la cote' and less with 'Funny et les dames de la cote'.
Overall, a most remarkable series, worthwhile to watch, and watch again, over and over, and digest its messages. We are not in WW-I, though love, betrayal, cold-heartedness, and most of all not wasting the few days of our earthly life with vain activities - here we can learn a lot.
