Alain Robbe-Grillet directs Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier and Christian Barbier in this French New Wave neo-noir where a smuggler and a prostitute enter into a series of puzzling transactions while the movie makers write and rewrite the plot of their affair on a long train journey.

Meta but also just an excuse to sneak in plenty of shots of Marie-France Pisier in as many chic outfits and S&M scenarios as the wafer thin narrative can sustain. Is the ultimate point that in the cinematic new frontiers of the Sixties the framing sex and violence within a plot is a hollow pointless exercise? We just want to see the machinations where the anti-hero draws a gun, the femme submits and they both can be tortured until release. All genre cinema is on a rail. Thanks for the horny, smart alec essay.

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Perfect Double Bill: Alphaville (1965)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin