Going Places (1974)
10/10
French Hippy Classic
16 August 2000
Depardieu's most notorious film is this (1974)groundbreaker from Bertrand Blier. It features many highly sexual scenes verging on an X-rating, including one of Jeanne Moreau doing a hot 1970s version of her Jules and Jim menage a trois with the two hairy French hippies (Depardieu and Deware). There is no such thing as a sacred territory in this film; everything is fair game.

It's very odd that Americans tend to not like this film very much while many French people I've met consider it a classic. Something about it goes against what Americans have been programmed to 'like.'

Gerard and the late Patrick Deware are two bitch-slapping, hippy drifters with many sexual insecurities, going around molesting women and committing petty crimes. They're out for kicks and anti-capitalist, Euro-commie, slacker 'freedom.' Blier satirizes the hell out of these two guys while at the same time making bourgeois society itself look ultimately much more ridiculous. Best of all though, is the way the wonderful Stephane Grappelli score conveys the restless soul of the drifters, the deeper subconscious awareness or 'higher ideal' that motivates all the follies they engage in.
12 out of 22 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed