It is a total mystery why I chose to see this film on the stroke of midnight bringing in 2024. I have had it for years, and it was certainly not what I hoped to see, but with such plaudits in France and America in the long ago of the mid-Seventies I was curious. Within minutes I found it unbearable; an excruciatingly unfunny film which has as its beginning a ' typical ' French wedding. As farce it was lame, the climax of it being a man showing his naked behind to much laughter. No spoilers although it seems everyone knows two distant cousins have what was called back then a ' freedom ' free platonic and then a full on sexual relationship. This relationship grips the film with too many scenes, and in my opinion Marie-Christine Barrault and Victor Lanoux give lack lustre performances. Their respective spouses are more or less side lined, and Marie-France Pisier ( the best actor in the film ) who is one of them briefly lights up the film. The soundtrack music is in my opinion appalling but typical of mediocre French films of its time. In fact I found the film vulgar and shoddily made, and regretted that I had not chosen Eric Rohmer. How mysterious are our choices!!
Review of Cousin, Cousine
