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Paul Vecchiali, 1986, France, 92 min. New 2K Restoration!
Among the unsung French arthouse films of the 1980s, independent filmmaker Paul Vecchiali’s emotionally confrontational, sexually frank masterpiece is an homage to the golden age of melodrama, starring Marianne Basler as a Les Halles sex worker who charms everyone she meets. But her good standing with pimp Gilbert (Jean Sorel) is upended when she falls for working-class Julien (Pierre Cosso), with whom she ponders starting a new life. With its rich color palette, emotional intensity and sweeping camerawork, Vecchiali’s tale of doomed love evokes Fassbinder’s revisionist melodramas and Jacques Demy’s musicals in its frank sexuality and embrace of artifice.
Paul Vecchiali, 1986, France, 92 min. New 2K Restoration!
Among the unsung French arthouse films of the 1980s, independent filmmaker Paul Vecchiali’s emotionally confrontational, sexually frank masterpiece is an homage to the golden age of melodrama, starring Marianne Basler as a Les Halles sex worker who charms everyone she meets. But her good standing with pimp Gilbert (Jean Sorel) is upended when she falls for working-class Julien (Pierre Cosso), with whom she ponders starting a new life. With its rich color palette, emotional intensity and sweeping camerawork, Vecchiali’s tale of doomed love evokes Fassbinder’s revisionist melodramas and Jacques Demy’s musicals in its frank sexuality and embrace of artifice.