Mention French New Wave cinema in conversation and the examples usually tossed around are Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” and Godard’s “Breathless.” Starting Friday, Film at Lincoln Center seeks to add “Adieu Philippine” to the standard list of emblematic works, offering a week-long screening of the forgotten Jacques Rozier flick.
Released in 1962, just a few years after those other classics, the movie was little seen in France and didn’t even arrive in America until 1973, despite acclaim from none other than Truffaut and Godard. All the requisite signifiers and themes of the New Wave movement are there in the film: rough-and-tumble blocking and framing, jumpy editing, “whatever’s around” lighting, youthful transgression, and a modern, almost aloof sensibility.
What one also gets — and this is unexpected — is a sprawling, at times satirical story, a sensitive portrait of female friendship, a bit of a travelogue, and some historical gravitas.
Essentially about a love triangle, the film resembles Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim,” also released in 1962, except this ménage à trois consists of one young man, handsome camera technician Michel, and two jeunes femmes, Liliane and Juliette, who are aspiring actresses/models as well as best friends. At the start, after Michel meets the pair outside the TV station he works for, the film’s editing clips along with quick flirty moments and a breezy tone — even when he mentions he’ll be called up for military service soon. Text at the beginning of the movie has already informed us that it is 1960, the sixth year of the Algerian war.
Scenes featuring cars figure prominently throughout, as during a humorous montage in which Michel and his buddies test-drive a jalopy to collectively purchase, primarily in order to pick up girls. Later, when Liliane is riding in a taxi with Monsieur Pachala, an inept commercial producer who is her intermittent boss, the plot advances when she suggests that he speak with Michel. Along the way amusing commentary is provided by the cabbie, probably a real one. It goes without saying that the scene was indeed shot in a car as it glides through the streets of Paris — no rear projection here.
Another charming scene occurs when Michel invites a buddy just back from the war, Dédé, to his parents’ house. Instead of drawing out the dazed soldier to speak about his experience, the older folks gripe about Michel’s vehicular investment and rising prices. Some of it borders on stereotype, with very French gestures and grunts, but there’s an entertaining authenticity to the clamor that makes the scene more than mere satire of petit bourgeois concerns and generational differences.
The film’s centerpiece sequence, at least in its first half, might just be the one in which for several minutes we see Liliane and Juliette walk briskly down busy Parisian blocks, with Rozier and his cameraman Rene Mathelin most likely following them in a car. It’s a joy to watch, with the two savvy young women agreeing to a competition to see who racks up the most dates with Michel, all while several male passers-by accost them. The documentary-like quality of this segment matches other outdoor scenes in which real people appear in shots and sometimes even look at the camera.
Television is also important to the narrative, with Rozier dedicating several sequences to Michel’s job in TV and Mr. Pachala’s commercials for various clients. After the technician meets with Pachala at Liliane’s insistence, and the two agree to work together on a “short film” for a local refrigerator retailer, another fantastic scene unspools with insight and mirth. It’s as if Rozier is comparing the fast, scrappy pace of television and the often compromised nature of advertising work to the new methods of production ushered in with the New Wave.
Once the story shifts to Corsica, the movie grows deeper and more frantic at the same time (there’s Club Med footage that approaches the orgiastic). At the resort, Michel chats up new girls, but then Liliane and Juliette show up, telling him that Pachala, who owes the young man money, is also on the island. What follows as the threesome drive around the rustic island trying to locate the hacky impresario feels like a cross between “Beach Blanket Bingo” and Italian post-war cinema.
The primary thing the three seem to be doing on the island is stalling for time, with Michel not wanting to commit to either mademoiselle, and each young lady jealousy distracting him from the other. Looming over these maneuvers is his imminent duty for the armed services, causing barely contained anxiety in each character. The three leads — Jean-Claude Aimini, Yveline Céry, and Stefania Sabatini — have hardly any credits to their names after “Adieu Philippine,” yet each gives a wonderful “coming-of-age” performance.
When the time comes to say goodbye, Rozier distances viewers from their parting by not allowing us to hear his words to the two friends, substituting expressive music and widescreen imagery for spoken sentiment. Reality envelops the two young women as they stand on a dock in a seaside landscape of longing and Michel sets sail on a ship heading back to mainland France. Soon, though, we know he’ll be traversing the Mediterranean again — this time not for fun.
