Touches You

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Chabrol's second film, made months after his first Le Beau Serge, and a more mature film director is evident. Helped, no doubt by those he gathered around him notably on script and camera, while the first film had charm and passion, this has that and more. Not only is this an interesting and intriguing tale of student life and affairs late 50s, the way it is shot opens up a whole new world of cinema. At least for the next five years this new Wave would dominate French cinema and also influence most of the world's cinema. With a fluid camera movement, jump cuts and an emphasis on 'real' people, having fun, being serious about politics, smoking all the time and having sex, cinema would, as they say never be the same again. Les Cousins is all of the above and entertains and amuses. Chabrol has complete control of the music this time, which works very well - even if it includes youngsters dancing around to Wagner! Important and enjoyable - can't say fair than that.

"Les Cousins" is the first of two early Claude Chabrol movies ("Les Godelureaux" / "Wise Guys" is the other one) which seem to exist merely to show us that the lives of the idle rich are fun but superficial and empty (Jean Claude Brialy essentially plays the same character in both!). Chabrol makes this point early on, and then belabors it for nearly two hours. There are long, boring scenes in which nothing happens except the characters partying. The film has no plot, but Chabrol does have an ace up his sleeve - a sudden surprise ending (for those viewers who stick with it until then). A lesser Chabrol film in my opinion, although it seems to be highly regarded critically. ** out of 4.

Chabrol's second feature. I haven't seen his first, Le beau Serge, but this is the most French New Wave film I've seen from Chabrol. As such, it's by far my favorite. I like several of his films, but I do find even my favorites a little dry. This one is just gorgeous and it's quite a lot of fun throughout. Gerard Blain plays a provincial who is moving to Paris to go to college. He moves in with his cousin (Jean-Claude Brialy), who is himself a student. Brialy is a total party animal, spending all his free time drinking with friends and none of it studying. The two get along at first, but then a woman (Juliette Mayniel) comes between them. The film is kind of a precursor to Jules et Jim.

Why is this moving and provoking movie never seen? It never seems to get any notice or mention when discussing or reviewing New Wave films. Better than the "400 Blows" and most of the rest of the genre. Could the score have something to do with this. Does Wagner have such an effect on viewers?