The Hairdresser's Husband (1990)
(Le mari de la coiffeuse)
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 80m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena
Synopsis:
A man realises his childhood dream of marrying a hairdresser and lives in blissful seclusion with her, until bliss glimpses its own reflection.
Review:
Possibly its creator's ultimate masterpiece, this is a delicious meditation on what it is for two individuals to love each other to the exclusion of all else, yet in the most modest and quotidian of circumstances. A tale told by its protagonist from his own pained vantage point of bereavement, via chillingly eloquent close-ups of Rochefort's impassive features, contrasted with a more urbanely engaging voiceover narration, it is full of anecdotal incident while remaining grounded within a mise en scene centred around the stars' shared looks and smiles across a sun-bathed, otherwise deserted salon. The hilarious vigour of Rochefort's joyous dancing to Arab music is musically counterpointed in the more elegiac moments by Michael Nyman's melancholy string writing. This is French auteur cinema at its most rarefied and triumphantly sensual.
(Le mari de la coiffeuse)
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 80m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena
Synopsis:
A man realises his childhood dream of marrying a hairdresser and lives in blissful seclusion with her, until bliss glimpses its own reflection.
Review:
Possibly its creator's ultimate masterpiece, this is a delicious meditation on what it is for two individuals to love each other to the exclusion of all else, yet in the most modest and quotidian of circumstances. A tale told by its protagonist from his own pained vantage point of bereavement, via chillingly eloquent close-ups of Rochefort's impassive features, contrasted with a more urbanely engaging voiceover narration, it is full of anecdotal incident while remaining grounded within a mise en scene centred around the stars' shared looks and smiles across a sun-bathed, otherwise deserted salon. The hilarious vigour of Rochefort's joyous dancing to Arab music is musically counterpointed in the more elegiac moments by Michael Nyman's melancholy string writing. This is French auteur cinema at its most rarefied and triumphantly sensual.
(Le mari de la coiffeuse)
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 80m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena
Synopsis:
A man realises his childhood dream of marrying a hairdresser and lives in blissful seclusion with her, until bliss glimpses its own reflection.
Review:
Possibly its creator's ultimate masterpiece, this is a delicious meditation on what it is for two individuals to love each other to the exclusion of all else, yet in the most modest and quotidian of circumstances. A tale told by its protagonist from his own pained vantage point of bereavement, via chillingly eloquent close-ups of Rochefort's impassive features, contrasted with a more urbanely engaging voiceover narration, it is full of anecdotal incident while remaining grounded within a mise en scene centred around the stars' shared looks and smiles across a sun-bathed, otherwise deserted salon. The hilarious vigour of Rochefort's joyous dancing to Arab music is musically counterpointed in the more elegiac moments by Michael Nyman's melancholy string writing. This is French auteur cinema at its most rarefied and triumphantly sensual.