Le beau Serge

I consider myself fairly well versed in the French New Wave.  I’ve seen everything by Truffaut (my favorite) and the most of major and some of the minor works by Godard, Rohmer, and Rivette, as well as Left Bank directors like Varda, Resnais and Demy.  And yet except for L’Enfer (which I actually watched accidentally) and Le Boucher Chabrol has eluded me.  Perhaps it’s because his name rarely pops up on the canonical lists.  He’s considered a major figure and this film, his first, is generally regarded as the birth of the nouvelle vague.  He just doesn’t seem to have a lot of supporters.

And I can see why.  My reactions to what I’ve seen can be best characterized as “lukewarm.”  He doesn’t appear to have much of a distinctive style or voice.  Although there is a certain freedom and ambivalence to what he’s doing here, and it doesn’t seem as “produced” as classical film, there’s not much about it that says “New Wave.”  My review of Boucher was two brief lines, and although I think I’ve improved my reviewing skills since then, I’m struggling to come up with more than that to say now.  It definitely looks great for a first film, especially with Reichardt’s somewhat sloppy debut still fresh in my memory.  Some of the scenes are quite beautiful, particularly during the climax.  The characters feel genuine, with the naive but well-meaning Francois (Jean-Claude Brialy) and the angry, bitter drunk Serge (Gerard Blain) at the center.  But I dunno… it’s all just kind of dull.  It left me feeling not much of anything about it.

I really can’t think of anything else to say.  I’ll probably just avoid Chabrol from now on… he’s not bad, but he’s not my cup of tea.  Rating: Fair

IMDb