This is not what you expect from Yves Boisset, the militant director whose best works deal with burning subjects ; you first think it's not the right way to tackle feminism :what? a look at prostitution, some lesbianism and a return to "normality " in the shape of the most horrid hairy macho you could think of...
But further acquaintance shows this : this is a feminist movie,even though it shows the destruction of the heroine :first a lawyer with good prospects ,but who is given insignificant affairs because her boss always saves the best bit for himself ;then a transvestite turned pimp in the prostitution world : Miss Zabou (Breitman)'s metamorphosis is a genuine tour de force ;with her raincoat,her tie and her male cutting ,she literally becomes a man ;she's even almost scary .She makes friends with a prostitute who becomes her lover .... and she passes for her pimp in this red-light district !and after her death , she 's hired as a maid in a bourgeois family where she seduces a mother of two .
She tries another way of living ,but her new lover is afraid to lose her children (I don't want my kids to be given to a couple of d.....s !says the husband we never see.)
In fact ,the heroine cannot find her place in a man's man's man's world ;her last relationship will be the death of her, at least mentally .....She plays the game of cheating at her own risks : dressed up as a man, sexually attracted by both sexes , usurping another woman's name to get her lover,and finally trying to find a human being to live with who reveals himself a hateful macho...the sexual exploitation of women;although based on a true story ,Boisset's film looks more like a fable than a realistic depiction.Every time ,the man wins it all : be it the lawyer ,the good father or the macho : and Nicole's final act is pointed at all men ,not the happy-go-lucky painter.
Zabou (Breitman) gives a Cesar-caliber performance in all her scenes she' s dressed up as a man ; the sadly missed Christine Pascal 's appearance is much too short ,and the rest of the cast is not on a par with them ,particularly Anna Galiena and Yves Alfonso ;Boisset's directing is a bit heavy-handed ,but it's his trademark .His movie is overblown ,but most of his other works almost always are ;they are demonstrative and that's finally what one expects from them.
Like this ? try these.....
"Les Biches " Claude Chabrol,1967
"Une Femme, Un Jour " Leonard Keigel ,1977
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