Maurice Pialat’s unsettling tale of erotic obsession led US critic Andrew Sarris to proclaim leads Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu "the sexiest couple in the history of cinema.” (1980)
Screened as part of NZIFF 2006
Loulou 1980
This unsettling tale of erotic obsession led American critic Andrew Sarris to proclaim leads Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu ‘the sexiest couple in the history of cinema’. Huppert plays Nelly, a refined bourgeois woman who dumps her respectable partner for wild sex and utter irresponsibility with Loulou, a loutish layabout played by Depardieu. Guy Marchand co-stars as the spurned André, an advertising executive at a loss to understand what Nelly and Loulou could possibly have in common. Pialat’s gift for combining storytelling and social observation has drawn frequent comparisons to Zola; Loulou demonstrates why. “No other French film is such a mine of information about class, living arrangements, clothes, what people earn, and family relationships.” — Le Monde
“As fresh and unsettling today as it was in 1980… To see the movie again is to realize how few filmmakers in the intervening years have even attempted to chart the vast intricacies, the sparks and synapses, of sexual passion and the particular nature of women’s desire.” — Molly Haskell, Film Comment