MovieChat Forums > Les valseuses (1974) Discussion > A hardcore feminist worst nightmare?

A hardcore feminist worst nightmare?


While watching this film, many times I asked myself if most women would actually like it. I know I wouldn't recommend it to a woman, unless I'm sure she likes foreign, "art" films, and likes Goddard or Buñuel or similar movies. That she won't be shocked easily.

Let's take the two leading guys. In addition to all the gratuitous and non-gratuitous nudity (hell, even the german Blu-ray has nudity on the cover ), these two guys are the poster boys for chauvinism, hedonism, misogyny, and on top of that, they are criminals that will force themselves into anything/anyone they like. For example, when Miou-Miou has her first orgasm, she tells them how it happened. Turns out, the clueless young guy actually kissed her and was very tender, let her take the initiative sometimes, and even when she is telling them, they still can't understand how it happened, so they figure out there's something wrong WITH HER, and throw her to the water. Twice. While naked.

In other words, they are a walking, living trainwreck. You can't help but watch it, even if you don't like them or agree with them.

I do know that a lot of people decide if they like a movie or not based on how much they liked the main character(s), ignoring the plot, message or content. If they can't root for the character, they just won't like it.

So I guess I wonder if any lady likes this movie, or if this is the ultimate "guy's movie".

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I don't think it's a 'guy's movie'. LES VALSEUSES is not male-friendly either, even if the male audience might be lulled into that feeling because of the nude women.

But you're right, I would not recommend this film to my female friends, unless they are into art house films. There are too many scenes in which women get victimized.

To me, it's sort of a cavemen movie, with two males thumping big sticks on women's heads and at the same time being surprised why women react how they react.



"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film."

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Certainly not a 'guy' movie.

I remember seeing this late at night as a teenager on some channel. I've always remembered it as one of the first erotic films I ever saw and remembered it being quite a thrill.

Having rewatched it some 20+ years later it is far from the movie I remembered as a teenager.

The two leads were utterly unlikeable douchebags and I was desperately hoping they got their comeuppance at the end. Sadly not. And you can coat it with whatever you like from a 2014 viewpoint but I don't feel there was any intention of shining a light on unchecked male behaviour back in 1974 - I think it was genuinely made as a testosterone fuelled 'macho' film.

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Well, aren't career criminals indeed utterly unlikeable douchebags? I felt that this movie is more honest about criminality than all those films about the bank robber/thief/con man with a heart of gold, tipping his hat at the ladies.

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What a pity, to read that. I think you were more open in your younger years. ;-)
No, it is not a macho movie at all. It is all of a seventieth movie; I consider it the European version of Easy Riders. It shows the emptiness, hopelessness, in a time of liberties unknown until then. What to do with one's life?
There is hate of the bourgeois, the newly rich. There is sexual frustration - don't forget how it might have been 20+ years earlier in your life!

Watch closely, if you ever watch it again. You'll notice a lot of purely human gestures. There is not the hate that one can observe so often in our days: They don't destroy the contents of the uninhabited house, they just serve themselves. They have an eye for the people in need, think about the woman coming out of prison. Do they rape the woman in the train? I think not. No, they are *not* nice guys to her, but leave her effectively unharmed. She seriously enjoyed licking and sucking her breast.
The movie shows a pair of losers. They have limited success with the lady on the train; while her seriously unattractive, even ugly, husband gets her full attention. Think of the girl: they tried to give her sexual pleasure as much as they could. But that other chap, inexperienced, brought her to some fantastic orgasms. Watch their frustration, kicking their chairs around ... .
They are losers, they lose whatever they lay their hands on, with one exception all women, all means of transport, money. The first woman they can both click with suicides. Later on they are suspected murderers of a murder they didn't commit. Some of their cars break down.

All this doesn't render them nice guys, not at all. But the film would be completely misunderstood if one mainly observed the petty and large crime. The movie is not about the crime. The movie is about people, and Blier shows a good hand for the human touch.
In the end they drive into a black hole. The same black hole that their lives have been until then. And they won't get out of that hole, ever.
Remember the scene with the girls at Bowling. They could have clciked with them, the girls were not uninterested. How would that life have probably continued? Look at the girls: friends, marriage, kids, work, climbing the social ladder, settle, have a DS19 or DS21, grow old, drop dead. I think that's why the Depardieu-character was so rude to them: he felt intuitively that theirs was not his piece of cake.

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I hate feminists.
"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians"-Pat Robertson.
and I love this film.So go suck on that.

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I agree. I love a lot of women, but I despise most hardcore feminists because of how they hate men.

And I love this movie, and I especially love the Gerard Depardieu character.

I agree with you.

But, to some others. Before any more talk ensues about how this movie is so "misogynistic", be sure to check out the scenes which feature the loveliest, the most ethereal, the most wondrously feminine creature of them all, the divine Jeanne Moreau... And then ask yourself if the two men are not capable of being in utter awe of this female, who happens upon their path.

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[deleted]

The problem -- as always -- is one of perception. People from either end of the spectrum do not understand what terms like feminism, racism, or even discrimination actually mean, or entail.
Advocating female rights over all other genders or considerations isn't feminism -- and as such cannot be part of a 'feminist agenda' .
That said, I doubt any feminists would object to this movie. Neither of the lead characters are portrayed as heroic, nor I suspect are they meant to be seen as such.
In the context of the time period, location and backgrounds of the characters it seems strange that anyone, including feminists, would judge them, or the movie, by contemporary standards.


...here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread

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