The Good Girls

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Audience Member The central theme is the Parisian woman. The main aspect is the pursuit of love. A commentary on contemporary French society in the subtext realm, <i>Les Bonnes Femmes</i> is a product intentionally and equally effectively inconsistent in tone, but not uneven in pacing and focused on the point. Several women - two protagonists, and at least three secondary female characters - have only one thing in common: the place where they work. Still, each woman has a life of her own, surrounded by disappointment, as if they had an idealistic concept of love in a world which trends and fads might be signs of a slowly decaying society: alcoholism, chauvinism, prostitution, cabarets, and all the remaining components of the nightlife in modern Paris. Analyzing the whole sequences, pattterns emerge. One pessimistic sequence is followed by a delightful one, where sudden bursts of humor overshadow the scary aura of the previous one, while simultaneously preparing us for the next one. A disturbing night club with strippers and men wearing pig masks is followed by a cheerful zoo sequence and a man declaring two poems with constant interruptions of humorous tones. A stalker in a motorcycle following the group of women precedes the strangest and most invigorating swimming pool sequence in cinema. These vague references mirror the randomness of life itself, which has a full arsenal of contradictory emotions prepared for us, whether we are ready for them or not. Technical innovation is everywhere, but Chabrol also makes sure to break the tradition of classic Hollywood moviemaking utilizing an uncommon storytelling structure of epic proportions. Truly, this is a massive project from an emotional point of view, especially the concept of love. It is also confusing. The group of characters are shown as women who seem to have hope for a dead ideal of love in a rotten society, but then again the film seems to give some rays of light and hope. An extraordinary project unlike anything I had seen before it, <i>Les Bonnes Femmes</i> tries to mirror the versatility of life seen through the eyes of an idealized concept stuck in the middle of self-destructive tendencies without being sensationalist. Chabrol still remains as the darkest and most disturbing Nouvelle Vague director who keeps assaulting the sensibility of the viewer in the cruelest of psychological forms, this case being a nonstop stream of cognitive dissonance, including his debut (a Hitchcock homage) and one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen: <i>Les Cousins</i> (1959). 94/100 Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member A deeply disturbing film. The listlessness so typical of the French New Wave appears in full force, but the last scenes are absolutely devastating. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member An odd, yet compelling film that for the most part comes across as genial and light but appearances are not quite what they seem. Beautifully filmed with some really good performances, I'm not sure this film completely works but it's a stark, unsettling film and I can see echoes of it in Haneke and Von Trier. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member I saw this once in college and remembered very little of it, and on a whim, I decided to watch it again. How I could have seen this before as a forgettable academic excursion is beyond me now. A beguiling masterpiece. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member Meninas entediadas, sem perspectivas de futuro, e em busca do príncipe encantado. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member In my opinion, one of Claude Chabrol's best films from the new wave era. This film has a lot of depth and left me thinking about it weeks after seeing it. Four women with four different outlooks and ambitions in life interact with caricatures of men. Chabrol presents his subjects to us like insects to be observed but with such care that easily draws us into them. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Good Girls

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