Loulou
Directed by Maurice Pialat
Written by Arlette Langmann and Maurice Pialat
1980/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime Rental (Fandor)
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Some people are born losers; others acquire the knack gradually. – W. C. Fields
I could have lived without seeing this stupid movie.
Loulou (Gérard Depardieu) is a complete slacker. He is the kind of guy who will spend his entire life spongeing off people, mostly women, between jail sentences for petty crimes. The only place he is any good is the bedroom. This is more than enough for the educated, cultured Nelly (Isabelle Huppert) to leave her husband André (Guy Marchand). The movie is a series of sex scenes and bad boy action.
Gerard Depardieu plays one of the most unlikeable protagonists in film history. He’s a complete zero, up there with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless, only that is a a much better movie. I spent the whole film hoping the Huppert character would dump him. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. The worst part is that I think we are supposed to root for Loulou by the end. I cannot imagine why.
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This finishes up the List films for 1980. I regret not having a rewatch of The Gods Must Be Crazy but I need to get my DVD player set up still. I’m going to move on to 1981. It looks to be another good year for movies.
This film left so little of an impression on me, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually watched it. Turns out that what I said about it wasn’t that it was a bad film as much as it was an empty one, completely devoid of anything interesting or worth talking about. I also evidently stopped paying close attention to it mid-way through, and I can’t say that that was a bad choice.
100% with you on that one! So excited for 1981.
Speahing of Gérard Depardieumade me think must be time for Jean de Florette so I looked, no still some time to go (1986), simply a “must watch”
I love, love, love Jean de Florette and its other half Manon des sources. Better get a move on or I won’t get to 1986! Actually I think I have my movie groove back.
My final remark on this one was:
Not recommended unless you get a kick out of watching idiots messing up their lives.
And it is not even fun to watch their stupidity.
Welcome to 81. You will soon catch up with me.
I thought “Nice, a short one!”. And then it dragged on interminably. I was done about 20 minutes in.