Never mind the bollocks

Its title French slang for “balls” or testicles, Bertrand Blier’s Les Valseuses (1974) arrived in America as Going Places, and that image above was once an inescapable presence in magazines, newspapers, subways and urban streets, thanks to an aggressive ad campaign by Cinema V, its original distributor in the States.

    I’ve shown the film to several people over the years, and the common reaction has floated anywhere between null and void. Blier’s subversion of genre, the deliberate evasion of melodrama from situations such as rape, assault, suicide and vandalism, appears to dash most viewer expectations. In short, they just don’t know what to make of it.

    Blier reserves moralizing when handling violence and depression, and that disturbs people more than the unsavory acts unfolding on the surface. Morality is a slippery slope, and I’d like to think that Blier crafts his scenarios from a realistic understanding of attitudes and values. If anything, he consciously jabs and punctures the male ego and libido—something honed to raw perfection in Calmos (1976), Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978), and his creative spin on Lolita, Beau-père (1981). From the opening scenes in Going Places of Patrick Dewaere pushing Gérard Depardieu around in a shopping cart, chasing a woman out of lustful boredom; to their frustration in working Miou-Miou to her “rightful” orgasm, Blier interprets masculinity as a tediously high-maintenance façade, down to the matching threads they wear.

    The quaint acoustic styling of jazz violinist Stéphane Grapelli used to score the film provides a perfect counterbalance. It’s a brief, quiet and lovely soundtrack, reflecting the humanity and tenderness habitually rejected by Dewaere’s and Depardieu’s characters. You can hear it below:

Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou and Patrick Dewaere (click to enlarge)

Les Valseuses
Music by Stéphane Grapelli

1. Ballade (Thème Principal) 4:11
2. Jeanne 1:48
3. Rolls 2:51
4. Jeanne [Version 2] 1:58
5. Poursuite 2:33
6. Rolls [Version 2] 1:18
7. Ballade (Générique de Fin) 3:49

Stéphane Grapelli (violin)
Maurice Vander (piano, organ)
Philippe Catherine (guitar)
Marc Hemmeler (piano)
Guy Pedersen (bass)
Daniel Humair (drums)
(Tracks will no longer be available seven days after posting)


Buy the DVD at Amazon

Buy the soundtrack at Amazon