L'été en pente douce

The gritty decors combine interestingly with a dreamlike plot, pitting the hero and his "borderline" brother against the hostility of his home town, inflamed by his return, after his mother's death, with his Marilyn-Monroe-imitating girlfriend/fiancee. Although the conclusion is a bit facile, this film should go down in history for Pauline Lafont's - and the director's - creation of Lilas. Incarnating a male fantasy leavened with reminiscences of her mother Bernadette's powerful performance in Nelly Kaplan's _La fiancee du pirate_, Lafont generates more sheer sexual magnetism than any other woman I have ever seen on screen, whether rated R or XXX. It's wrenching to recall that this vibrant young woman died in an accident a year later at the age of 25.