A posh lady walks around Paris, and spots a beautiful homeless girl painting on the pavement for a few franks…
Naturally, she takes her home and offers her a roof and a bed — her bed. You would think that the much admired director Claude Chabrol made this lesbian film in the spirit of the sexual revolution… But there is so much class hatred sipping through, and there is so much boredom and casual cruelty in the free-wheeling triangle that ensues, that it is not too clear what’s on Chabrol’s mind.
This is the very opposite of a celebration of lesbian sisterhood, and why shouldn’t it be? The Seventies showed that everything was possible, not necessarily that everything was advisable.
Whatever you think of its message, the movie is worth watching for Stéphane Audran alone (the star of the much-loved film Babette’s Feast), who won the best actress award at Berlin for this role, and who manages to be totally threatening and totally alluring at once…
