The Lacemaker (1977)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Moving and memorable psychological drama with outstanding performances. This seemingly simple tale tells us a lot about the way social class and background colour not just our habits and tastes, but our very being. And this influence is not always benign : often we become the owners of mindsets that blind us to the value, or the legitimate needs, of others.France is an apt setting for this kind of tale. On the one hand it is a country with a strict, a VERY strict, social hierarchy, on the other hand everybody is supposed to be free and equal (and, of course, very much in favour of freedom and equality). The resulting contradictions, compromises and tensions strew the landscape with snares for the vulnerable. Be warned : the movie is not a cheery one, it contains a deep tragedy. Dutch poet Werumeus Buning once wrote a poem about the life of roses being destroyed not through a storm, but through a soft, tender, delicate rainfall. The context of the poem is different but the image could very well apply to one of the lead characters, who meets good things - love, romance, emotional awakening, a bit of excitement - and, slowly but surely, gets damaged beyond recognition. All together : "The pleasure of love lasts but an instant, the grief caused by love can last a lifetime"...

Beatrice is a very reserved and quiet young woman. Her friend Marylene is left by her lover and brings her to Cabourg (Normandy) for a few days' vacation. There, Beatrice, an apprentice hairdresser, meets Francois, a middle-class intellectual. Francois becomes her first lover, but their social and cultural differences get in the way of happiness.This film is highly praised and indeed it is a pretty good film. Not my favorite, not one I am likely to recommend to others, but a fine film just the same. What I liked most is that the movie says it is okay to be an introvert, to be a wallflower, to be a loner. Other movies might have a shy kid breaking out of their shell, but here we have Beatrice who knows who she is and is (for the most part) very comfortable about it.

This film is about class, pure and simple. The shy Hubert comes from a lower class than her male lover. He can't accept her because she's not an intellectual like he is. He can't appreciate her quiet beauty because it is a nonverbal beauty, and he lives in a world of words and books.Hubert's performance is wonderful.

The Lacemaker, 1977, its oblique sexual politics appear dated twenty-five years later. Pascal Laine (author) and Claude Goretta would have us believe that the young male student's callowness leads to heartbreaking tragedy for Huppert's character. Twenty-five years later that assertion seems callow itself, and shallow political nonsense. Healthy young women are not so helpless. I understand the movie as a love story (intimate nudity is substituted for sex, and any love they may have shared we must take on faith) concerning two pathologically depressed people. They are drawn together by their mutual recognition and the hope that the other can alleviate their individual suffering. Of course, they discover that their depression prevents any real intimacy.