Un Film que j'aime.

While being in the category of my favorite movie simply because it is in French, A Bout de Souffle, is a work of art in and of itself. It is in black and white, circa 1960, the audio doesn't always match up to the actors' lips, and it ends in a confusing tragedy. Yet i have seen several movies more recent make allusions toward it, and i feel set apart as in an elite group for understanding and appreciating the reference simply because i consider this movie to be fairly unknown. 

For starters, a young Parisian, Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) steals a car and inadvertently kills a cop. He goes back to Paris where he meets up with Patricia, (Jean Seberg) a young American selling New-York Herald Tribunes on the Champs-Elysees, who he has gone out with a few times. He strangely feels attached to her although she wisely tries to discourage his affections for her. 

He knows he is in dire trouble when he overlooks on the front page of every newspaper his face and a warrant for his arrest. The situation is worsening all the time because he still has to collect on a bet before he can hide out in Rome, hopefully with Patricia. He can't seem to track this guy down who owes him a good deal of money almost to the point where he quits. The police interrogate Patricia about Michel's whereabouts, but of course she says she hasn't seen him. 

The climatic end of the movie is coming up. Michel and Patricia use a friend of a friend's flat to wait for the money Michel is owed. Before Michel wakes up, Patricia goes to the bar downstairs and calls the police to inform them of Michel's location. The police arrive right after Michel gets his money. He is in the streets and minutes away from freedom in a foreign country with Patricia. His friend tosses him a gun, but Michel doesn't want anything to do with it so he throws it back in the car. He has given up and would rather go to jail than keep running. He has been running away from the consequences for too long. 

The police shoot him in the back, assuming he is armed and dangerous. He limps/runs away trying to escape death with Patricia hot on his heals. He falls and the police and Patricia gather around him, hovering. His final words are to Patricia "Tu es dégueulasse" ("You're disgusting") after making his three favorite, and previously seen several times, funny faces and his signature thumb movement across his lips. Patricia inherits this thumb movement for the first and final time and the movie is over.

I love this movie because it is simply entertaining. So many lines of Michel's just crack me up. My favorite is when Patricia asks him if he likes William Faulkner. He replies no, who is he? Have you slept with him? Classic movie. I thank David for introducing it to me and his francophile roommates for introducing it to him.

Ciao