Moi, Aussi

 From the archives ...

CONTEMPT (1963) (B+) - Jean-Luc Godard broke through in a splash of primary colors with this film, the prelude to his '60s run that would yield "Band of Outsiders" next and include "Alphaville," "Pierrot le Fou," and "Le Weekend." Here he corrals mid-career Brigitte Bardot to play a wife used as a pawn by a playwright slumming in films. 

Bardot is Camille, who starts out bare-assed as she asks her cold husband, Paul (Michael Piccoli), to express his love of all of her body parts. That's Godard's blunt way of treating Camille as an object and setting up the crumbling of their marriage. Paul essentially offers Camille to the pushy American producer (a flat Jack Palance) of a commercial version of "The Odyssey." 

Godard frolics with those patented blues and reds, and he revels in the sartorial choices of his unhappy couple. His confident camera captures movie sets and majestic natural beauty, like a cliffside from which Bardot disappears only to return to the screen, after a toss of her towel and a splash, breaststroking away from the manipulative man who let her get away. 

BELLE TOUJOURS (2007) (C-minus) - This is a hugely disappointing follow-up -- four decades later -- of the Luis Bunuel epic "Belle du Jour," the 1967 story of a bored housewife (Catherine Deneuve) turning to prostitution to while away her afternoons. Here, Michael Piccoli reprises his role as Henri Husson, the friend of Belle's husband who threatens to reveal her secret.

Here, in the new millennium, Henri is a disaffected old drunk who spots Belle/Severine (now played by the captivating Bulle Ogier) at an orchestra concert and essentially stalks her until she agrees to have dinner with him so that they can settle their affairs. But she has long moved on and couldn't care less.

And, alas, neither should we. Even at a slim 78 minutes, this one drags, with one pointless establishing shot after another just filling space. Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira -- no spellbinder as a visual storyteller -- puts these two senior citizens on display and manages to drain these actors of any spark. A side story featuring two women at the bar repeatedly snarking over Henri and the hunky young bartender feels incredibly out of date, even for the previous decade. This one does a rude disservice to the original.