La Salamandre
Alain Tanner, Switzerland, 1971o
Rosemonde the Salamander is a young girl who gets by thanks to low-paid jobs of all kinds. She is suspected of having attempted to kill the uncle with whom she lives. A journalist and a writer are hired to get to the bottom of this mystery, as the basis for a television film scenario. They are unsuccessful however. The truth about Rosemonde and her special appreciation of life continue to elude these two amateur detectives.
Dedicated to a celebration of instinctive revolt, the film is less concerned with what happened than with the girl herself; and Bulle Ogier conveys volumes in the part as the film counterpoints her view of society with its varying view of her. There is, for instance, a scene where she has a job as sales-girl in a shoe shop, and without warning begins to caress the legs the customers present to her: it's a gesture that's at once funny, profoundly erotic, incongruous, and deeply shocking, and one that places both Rosemonde and the world she finds herself living in. A rare treat, infused with a rich and unforced vein of quiet humour. (Auszug)
N.N.An der Geschichte der rebellischen und freiheitsliebenden Rosemonde zeigt Tanner die Ernüchterung auf, die sich in der post-revolutionären Gesellschaft nach dem verheissungsvollen Mai 68 breit macht. Der Erfolg des Schwarzweissfilms liegt sowohl in seinem schon fast dokumentarischen, witzigen und nostalgischen Blick, als auch in der erzählerischen Improvisation und im Zusammenspiel der Schauspielerinnen und Schauspieler (Bulle Ogier, Jean-Luc Bideau und Jacques Denis), die alle in ihrer Rolle brillieren. Mit köstlicher Ironie und subversivem Witz streifen sie durch Genf, das ihnen irgendwie fremd ist. (Auszug)
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