Going Steady by Pauline Kael

Author:Pauline Kael [Kael, Pauline]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 1970-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

Claude Chabrol’s “Les Biches” is set in St. Tropez in December, and it’s about a sexually ambiguous idle-class threesome: a mope (Jacqueline Sassard), a dope (Jean-Louis Trintignant), and a chic lesbian (Stéphan Audran). One knows at once that she’s supposed to be a lesbian, because she slinks around like the daughter of Fu Manchu — the only amusement in this empty attempt at classy eroticism. It’s all languor, with almost no dialogue (and what there is is poor), though the score, by Pierre Jansen, helps to build up a little tension. The three characters are so ambiguous and idle that they’re opaque; they have no spirit, they just seem sleepy and tired, and although that can be explained as somehow being the meaning of it all, how can one explain the sex designed in decorator colors? The movie looks like those imitation Marie Laurencins in hotel powder rooms. This vulgarly “exquisite” style gives the show away: the intentions of the movie are as vacuous and enervated as the characters. That doesn’t necessarily bother audiences, though. Early in the movie, there’s a fancy shot of the lesbian making a pass at the other girl’s wet body, and one could hear people drawing in their breath. The theatre was unusually, almost embarrassingly quiet throughout the film — as if the audience were so hopeful that there would be something sexy coming on that they didn’t allow themselves to get bored and restless.

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