Loulou

Nelly leaves André, her husband in advertising, and moves in with Loulou. Loulou does not work, steals, hangs around bars and has no interest in the future. The film watches the affair begin, continue, and then reveal what continuing costs. Its subject is not love but class. What Nelly finds in Loulou is less a personality than a relief: a world that asks no questions, makes no plans and is sexually direct. The film does not romanticise it, and when she gets pregnant the fragility of that world comes out. The form is Maurice Pialat's usual method. Scenes begin in the middle, dialogue sits very close to improvisation, cuts are abrupt and transitions go unexplained. The viewer assembles the plot afterwards. It is among the first films Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu made together, both of them early in their careers and at their most exposed. Guy Marchand plays the abandoned husband and carries the film's most painful scenes. It screened in competition at Cannes in 1980. Who it is for: viewers who like French realism and Pialat's rough, interrupted storytelling. Who it is not for: anyone who needs characters to be likeable; nobody is vindicated here and the film defends no one.