Loulou (1980) Reviews

• Pialat looks at sexual need

  bob9982004-02-20

  Pialat films people in extreme emotional situations, usually with several violent scenes. In La Gueule ouverte, he's dealing with the devastating effects on a woman's husband and son as she dies of cancer. In A nos amours, the teenage girl's sexual experimentation leads to violent confrontations with her family. Here we have a rather spoiled young woman who abandons her husband to take up with a sexy ex-con. Her motivation is a little cloudy, since Loulou is incapable of reading or discussing anything more challenging than TV shows; on the other hand, he's got a fabulous body (I wonder why Depardieu never made a sports movie to show off that physique--he would have been great as a rugby player). The casting is impressive. Isabelle Huppert gives a committed performance as Nelly; her middle class reserve plays well against Depardieu's loutish energy. Depardieu plays Loulou with all the dynamism and charm you could want--see the scene in the bar, where he's stabbed in the gut, runs away and seeks treatment, then soon restarts with Nelly. Guy Marchand, with those coal-black eyes and distressed look, plays Nelly's husband beautifully; it's a fine repeat of their pairing in Diane Kurys's Coup de foudre.

• Great dialogue, even better if you understand the original

  pjksfo2002-08-27

  Given the exhaustive and thoughtful review by the previous poster, I won't be redundant. This movie contains one of the best lines I've ever heard: As Nelly rides away with LouLou on his motorcycle, Andre poutfully spouts (rough english) "But you can't discuss books with him!"; Nelly replies "I don't discuss books, I read them!". Priceless.

• and Nelly

  petershelleyau2001-11-10

  Director Maurice Pialat's film is more an exercise in star power than any presentation of narrative, with Isabelle Huppert leaving her husband Guy Marchand for the leather-clad ex-con ruffian Loulou played by Depardieu. Even though the tone takes its cue from the character of Loulou as a womanising drifter, the low key seemingly improvised rambling scenes are preferable to the gab-fests of Eric Rohmer, who is responsible for the negative connotations associated with French films by Americans. This film is actually mistitled since although it is Depardieu that is the catalyst for Huppert to change her life, the story is more hers than his. Or perhaps it is that the representation of her crumbling marriage that is more dramatically interesting than Depardieu's "loafing". If Loulou's character is sketched thinly that may to keep him as an enigma, the mysterious bad-boy that women always seem to prefer. At one point Huppert says of Depardieu, "I prefer a loafer who f**ks, to a rich guy who bugs me". And although we can see how limiting Depardieu's world is to Huppert, we also understand her attraction to him, highlighted by a silent image of the couple stumbling down a street in a drunken embrace. Pialat's best moments involve scenes of violence interrupting - a family get together soured by jealousy, the loud music of a disco drowning out shouting, and a brawl between Depardieu and Marchand in a courtyard with a following drink together as evidence of the French form of civilised behaviour. Huppert also has an early scene with Marchand where the camera follows his pursuit and humiliation of her, and here Huppert's anger invalidates the myth of her as a passive performer. The film also shows us footage of her laughing, which is unusual since her situations are usually so glum, and she is funny when she yells in shocked reaction to being hit, in the famous love scene where the bed collapses, and when she falls in the street by accident. Pialat also gives Marchand a laugh by having him resort to playing the saxophone in depression.

• Pilat strives for realism, and succeeds

  rosscbeauregard2012-02-27

  This is the pathetic story of a woman who leaves her well-off and educated husband for Loulou (Gerard Depardieu), an unemployed ex-con. The storyline doesn't deviate much from this premise outside of a few interesting anecdotes here and there, and the rest of the film is spent on depicting the interactions between the characters. So why does this simple film deserve eight stars? In my opinion, it's because Pialat has focused his attention on a single element that dominates all aspects of its development: realism. Characters depicted are paradoxical and confused, just as many people are when it comes to love and relationships. There is no soundtrack to distract the viewer. Perhaps most interesting of all is the way the film is written and acted; every line seems spontaneous, not scripted and polished. Because of this, the film really succeeds in the impression that you really are looking through a window into people's lives. It's all great cinema; the techniques used in this film really should be used more frequently. Make no mistake, though: this is an actor's film. All three of the leads are equally brilliant. We can feel the raw emotion when one of them make a sudden outburst, though we may not always understand their motivations. This movie certainly would not have been the same without them. I recommend this film to anyone who enjoys art-house cinema.

• Guttersnipes,cads, rogues drama--with erotic overtones

  Cristi_Ciopron2007-08-21

  Pialat is certainly one of the most interesting artists of the last century's final quarter.Interesting by his integrity and coherence and healthy simplicity.There is a great intelligence in these straightforward movies,a taste for directness and for narrative 'elementarity.In this film as well he works on a small canvas.He will not flatter the ordinary people,as he never resorts to the standard optimist anthropology that works with the known conventions.Pialat's characters are full human beings-without idealization.This gives his movies a brutal power and also an unspoken and very concrete …;the violence, brutality, 'instinctuality and 'animality of ordinary people have always found in Pialat an observer of admirable competence. In a disco,a young woman,Nelly,dances with a guy,to the displeasure of André,the man that she came with.He slaps her.She spends her night with her acquaintance,Loulou,and she enjoys his erotic strength. She lives together with the plebes,as it were.The scene of the country party with the low people,Loulou's family,is well made.Nelly participates in a burglary,a plunder.These are the people that she becomes friends with.This is Nine ½ Weeks upside down!There is a need of adventure in Nelly.Like La Femme d'à 'côté,Loulou (1980) is a scene of manners. Maurice Pialat sees the sexuality and the copulation as the core,motor and aim of the common everyday human relations.This is the nucleus, the kernel of the human interactions,the sphere's center.If we look around, we see this is true.There is not any word about love or fulfillment;Maurice Pialat's anthropology is correct and transparent. The mechanisms are simple;they are real. In "Loulou" there is a stream of naturalness ,sincerity and energy that confer the movie its freshness and charm.While the story is dirty, sordid and banal,the movie is,as I just put it,charming in its own way,as a work of art,and amazing.The material of "Loulou" is extremely simple—a young woman that comes from a rich family and is not necessarily thin-skinned passes from a violent man to a rudimentary human being,the bum Loulou and finds a certain happiness with him,for a while.As always with Pialat,there is no trace of idealization.Pialat's objectivity is unmatched.He does not comment the facts shown on screen.At a certain moment in the movie,Loulou and Nelly are lying on a sofa,they laze watching TV. The ex-convict that lives with them sits on the sofa's end,at the couple's feet. Meantime, Loulou's hand is lazily caressing Nelly's tits.Pialat will never try to make physiology pass as poetry. In her youth,Mrs. Huppert had the body of a Nereid ,as light as thistle down, and a luminous and delicate flesh that looks extremely well on screen;Pialat knew to showcase these charms of Mrs. Huppert in "Loulou".It is a fine occasion to see her naked.There are a few erotic scenes that …;Nelly looks truly great naked or in bed with one of her two men,she looked very made-to-be-loved.( Naturalism,yes,and refuse of the current conventions,but Pialat always offers the eroticism without spoiling it.He seems very interested in the sexual ardor and his depictions of the intercourse are never cold,never completely detached,Pialat always manages to find the savor of an erotic scene. Physiology,yes,but Pialat detects something important and striking and spectacular in the sexual act—yes,spectacular,and I think this is the only oasis for the spectacular in his films.It is obvious that, filming intercourse,--Lolou/Nelly,and even André/Nelly,he is never simply documenting a relation—it is more than that.Pialat is one of the remarkable cinematographic poets of the sexuality. And the way he films the naked body—here,Mrs. Huppert's,Mrs. Bonnaire's in another film—well,this is surely an affectionate way of filming naked women—Pialat finds poetry and beauty in this,he is dispassionate till it comes to this …;and,suddenly,a striking beauty—here,Mrs. Huppert's young body--I consider this one of the most beautiful aspects of Pialat's art. For this committed realist,the beauty of the nude,the intensity of sex are real,they appear as real. ) In another interesting film,…,Pialat filmed ,with equal gusto,Mrs. Bonnaire.This manifests his taste for the very feminine women. The main three actors—Huppert,Depardieu,Marchand—give truly extraordinary performances. Depardieu is required to look like a chimpanzee;he does.But beyond that he does a very good role. Pialat knew that there is a satisfaction of the mind in merely knowing the truth,in reaching it;in their radicalism his movies make very obvious this satisfaction obtained by the mind in knowing the truth.