Haut Bas Fragile
Mar 16, 2007
Jacques Rivette, France, 1995, 35mm, 169 min.
Sponsored by Center for West European Studies at The Henry M. Jackson School at U of W and Seattle Alliance Francaise
Paying tribute to MGMs low-budget musicals of the 1950s, specifically Stanley Donenas GIVE A GIRL A BREAK, HAUT BAS FRAGILE is a work which lovingly defies all expectations of the genre. The film follows three women who are each at a turning point in their lives. One has just awoken from a five-year coma, the second is trying to escape her criminal boyfriend and the third seeks her long-lost birth parents. They dance about the Paris streets before the film makes a surprising, genre-bending transformation. Many of the songs performed in the film were written by the actors themselves and infuse the film with a seemingly incongruous pairing of verite style and fantastic plotting. Rivette glories in the summery settings, the vivaciousness of his actresses, and the sheer joy of narrative in this most diverting of divertissements.