Les Contrebandières (1968)
Directed by Luc Moullet

Film Review

In his follow-up to his debut feature Brigitte et Brigitte (1966), Luc Moullet further distanced himself from his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries by cocking a snook at anyone who sees revolution as an effective driver for social and political change.  Moullet's cynical view that nothing ever changes ran contrary to the thinking of other New Wave directors who, in common with a vast swathe of bourgeois intellectuals, saw revolution as not only necessary but inevitable.  Jean-Luc Godard's Week-End (1967) and Moullet's Les Contrebandières (1968) are both wildly anarchic but their premises are diametrically opposed.  Like Godard, Moullet evokes the thirst for rebellion that was rife in France in 1967/8, but his conclusion is that all that revolution achieves is to move people from one miserable, unsatisfying groove to another miserable, unsatisfying groove.  Moulet's minority view proved to be the most realistic.  Ten years on from the events of May '68, you'd be hard pressed to notice any significant change in France.

In Les Contrebandières, Moullet takes most delight in pouring scorn on the feminist movement.  The film begins with one woman (Françoise Vatel, cast as an identically named character to the one she had played in Moullet's first film) rejecting the constrained, ordered life of the city in favour of a more liberated mode of existence in a barren, desert-like wilderness.  Within no time, she is seduced by a member of the opposite sex and ends up having to keep house for him.  She spends the rest of the film competing with another woman (Monique Thiriet) for her lover's attentions.  It's not the most forward-thinking of female representations but Moullet's point has some legitimacy - in any society gender archetypes will always assert themselves, and that is how it is.  Men will act like men, women will act like women, and never the twain shall meet.

Moullet questions not only the freedom of women but the freedom of individuals in general.  You'd think that the life of the smuggler is the ultimate in free living, but even smugglers, it seems, need to invent rules to regulate their activities.  The three protagonists (a typical French ménage à trois) end up being pursued by not only gun-totting fascists but also the officials of the union that supposedly represents their best interest.  Again, Moullet's view is depressingly pragmatic.  No society can exist without rules, and once you have rules you have the first foundation stone of a fascist state.

Luc Moullet's opinions are clearly and humourlessly expressed in comicbook form, but with a distinct lack of economy.  Les Contrebandières has barely enough content to justify being a full-length film and it is clearly a moyen métrage that has been padded out for (presumably) commercial reasons.  The second half of the film is effectively just an overlong Benny Hill-like runaround, with the main characters being pursued endlessly by the forces of officialdom.  Mid-way through, there is a change of régime, but the chase carries on as before, as if nothing has changed.  The girls end up back in the city before deciding (again) to return to the wild, bringing the film back to where it started.  Les Contrebandières is gratuitously repetitive and gloriously unsophisticated, so whilst it might have worked as fifty minute film, it becomes something of an endurance test as a feature.  Moullet's distinctive shoestring approach to filmmaking is not, however, with its charm.

Film Synopsis

Brigitte has grown weary of her rigidly organised life in the city, which allows her too little freedom for her to discover her true self.  In the end, exasperated, she heads to the border and makes up her mind to become a full-time smuggler.  It is fortuitous that she runs into a young man, Johnny, who shares her aspirations.  Once a customs inspector, he now leads a far more fulfilling life as a career smuggler and he is more than willing to indoctrinate Brigitte in his trade.  These two are joined by Francesca, who has recently fled from the fascist regime that is running the country on the other side of the border.

The ménage à trois arrangement turns out for the best, although the three friends have to be on their guard at all times so as not to be taken unawares by their enemies, which divide into two categories.  On the one hand, there are the customs men, who exist only to make life difficult for smugglers.  On the other, there is the smugglers' union, who are after Johnny for not paying his monthly subscription.  Smuggling is a hard enough occupation as it is, but being hunted relentlessly by union reps and customs men makes it a very challenging line of business.  After a series of wild adventures in exotic locations, Brigitte and her friends decide to settle in Le Havre.  Can they really go back to their old lives, or is smuggling all that the future now holds for them...?