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Les Bonnes Femmes
Les Bonnes Femmes
	Film poster
Directed by	Claude Chabrol
Written by	Claude Chabrol; Paul Gégauff;
Produced by	Raymond Hakim; Robert Hakim;
Starring	Bernadette Lafont; Clotilde Joano; Stéphane Audran; Lucile Saint-Simon;
Cinematography	Henri Decaë
Edited by	Gisèle Chézeau; Jacques Gaillard;
Music by	Pierre Jansen; Paul Misraki;
Distributed by	Pathé
Release date	1960;
Running time	100 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Les Bonnes Femmes is a 1960 French nouvelle vague comedy drama film directed by Claude Chabrol. It follows four young Parisian women and their very different encounters with men. Though unsuccessful upon its initial release in France, it was subject to critical reevaluation, and is now regarded as one of the best of Chabrol's early films.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Plot

The film tells the story of four young Parisian women and their domestic and romantic encounters. Several of them work as saleswomen in an appliance store, one moonlights as an entertainer, and all are pursued by Parisian men both good and bad. Jane is pursued by men and portrayed as being more ditzy and happy go lucky. Ginette works during the night as an entertainer and reveals that she hates her day job with the other girls. Rita has a fiancé, but during dinner with his parents, one sees that he thinks very little of her as an intellectual and a person. Jacqueline is pursued through the film by a mysterious man on a motorcycle, and even turns down other men after developing feelings for him despite never meeting. However, after the two finally meet and proclaim their love for each other, the man murders Jacqueline in the forest and then flees on his motorcycle.

Cast

Bernadette Lafont — Jane
Clotilde Joano — Jacqueline
Stéphane Audran — Ginette
Lucile Saint-Simon — Rita
Mario David — Ernest Lapierre (the motorcyclist)
Pierre Bertin — Belin (the shop owner)
Ave Ninchi — Louise
Jean-Louis Maury — Marcel
Albert Dinan — Albert
Sacha Briquet — Henri
Claude Berri — André, Jane's boyfriend

Release

The film was a commercial and critical failure in France,^[4] and wasn't shown in the United States until 1966, when it opened in New York City.^[5] The Los Angeles premiere was not before 1976.^[3]

Reception

After the film's 1966 New York opening, Robert Alden of the New York Times found Chabrol's symbolism "overdone", but lauded the cinematography and performances, concluding that Les bonnes femmes was not a perfect, but "worthwhile" film which "deserves more recognition than it has had."^[5]

In 1999, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader titled Les bonnes femmes "the best as well as the most disturbing" of Chabrol's films so far, reading the film's murder scene as a precursor to the climactic scene in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz.^[2] Upon the 2000 Los Angeles re-release, the Los Angeles Times reviewer saw "a sensitive study of character" and "one of his [Chabrol's] most individual—and most satisfying—works."^[3]

In the UK, critic Geoff Andrew rated the film "an ironic, witty study of human foibles" which "remains emotionally affecting thanks to Chabrol's unsentimental compassion for his subjects."^[6] Writing in The Guardian, David Thomson called it "one of Chabrol's best films, in which the four shopgirls he observes are all versions of the Emma Bovary dream. It's a great movie just because the people seem so ordinary and their lives so trivial."^[7]

In their 2011 list of "essential" Chabrol films, Indiewire described Les bonnes femmes as "a simultaneously heartbreaking and chillingly dark piece," and added that "the cruel world he [Chabrol] depicts... is a man's world, and women are just passing time in it."^[4]

References

^ Wakeman, John (1988). World film directors: Volume Two 1945-1985. New York: H.W. Wilson. p. 196. ISBN 0824207637. OCLC 923490031.
^ ^a ^b Rosenbaum, Jonathan (9 September 1999). "Les bonnes femmes". The Chicago Reader. Retrieved 26 May 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c Thomas, Kevin (11 February 2000). "'Bonnes Femmes' Remains a Sensitive Study". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
^ ^a ^b The Playlist Staff (22 September 2011). "The Essentials: The Films Of Claude Chabrol". IndieWire. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
^ ^a ^b Alden, Robert (13 May 1966). "Screen: 'Les Bonnes Femmes' Opens: Dreary Tale Well Told in New Wave Movie". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
^ "Les Bonnes Femmes". Time Out. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
^ Thomson, David (16 September 2010). "David Thomson on Claude Chabrol". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 September 2019.