I bet that a lot of people have walked out on this film. I have no first-hand knowledge of this. It’s just a guess. I’ve never seen this in a theater or with a group or in any context other than in my living room by myself in 2017 sipping Malbec and petting my cat’s belly while she purrs away with the intensity of a Craftsman lawnmower, uninterested in the violence and debauchery that I’m watching.
In this controversial dark comedy, Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere are two of the biggest jerks you’ve ever seen in a movie. They dish out sexual abuse on whomever they want. They lie, steal, bully and rape. They beat and humiliate women and they emasculate men. They do things that make you glad that you spent your evening at home, sipping wine and playing with your cat rather than going out and facing other people. And they’re the lead characters. They’re in every scene.
Still, they’re not exactly super villains. Shaggy and unkempt, Depardieu and Dewaere are more like over-grown children at their worst. They don’t have a plan. They don’t have a philosophy. What they are is human selfishness in raw form. Uncut, undiluted, unrated by the MPAA. Being 100% selfish makes you dangerous, but it also makes you stupid—and that’s where the comedy comes in. (Also, they’re oddly unselfish with each other. One suspects that they’re brothers, but the film never mentions it. When one of them needs medical attention, the other stops at nothing to get it. Also, they share women to the degree that most of the sex scenes are 2-man/1-woman threesomes.)
This is a funny movie, though not at first and not all the time. It gradually becomes funny as the characters’ spree of terror either goes wildly wrong or wildly right in ways they didn’t anticipate. You can see how the 26-year-old Depardieu later became a star in France. His comedic timing here is consistently spot-on. You buy every ghastly and idiotic thing that he does. Further elevating the affair is the top-shelf screen presence from a mid-40s Jeanne Moreau as a fresh-out-of-the-gates lady ex-con. Our two lead creeps fall in love with her in scenes that are touching, erotic and disarmingly beautiful. Moreau’s expressive eyes and the way she walks hold up as true wonders of cinema.
Meanwhile, writer/director Bertrand Blier boldly hangs out on the sketchy side of town, where Funny Street intersects with Blindingly Offensive Boulevard. Only a few talents can make it out alive from that place. John Waters has spent nearly his whole career there. In his debut film, Blier also manages to get by with his major arteries unscathed. If you made it through the whole thing, at least.