THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND Movie Review

Le Mari de la Coiffeuse

The director of the transfixing Monsieur Hire is back with another tale of obsession and fetishism, but this time far less successfully. The Hairdresser's Husband is about a man (the sweetly droopy-faced Jean Rochefort) who—as a boy—developed an erotic association with the act of having his hair cut. We see these childhood scenes in flashback, as Antoine remembers his first, pubescent sexual arousal at the hands of a stimulating and gently encouraging female barber. As an adult, it just takes one shampoo for him to fall head and shoulders for Mathilde (the dreamily beautiful Anna Galiena), whose subsequent marriage to Antoine leads to the movie's bittersweet but painfully contrived outcome. Maybe it's just that some fetishes are more suited to the movies than others, but it seems unlikely that there'll be a run on Flow-Bees anytime soon. The lilting score is by Michael Nyman (The Piano).

NEXT STOP… Monsieur Hire, Vertigo, Shampoo

1992 (R) 84m/C FR Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena, Roland Bertin, Maurice Chevit, Philippe Clevenot, Jacques Mathou, Claude Aufaure; D: Patrice Leconte; W: Claude Klotz, Patrice Leconte; C: Eduardo Serra; M: Michael Nyman. VHS, LV, Closed Caption PAR,BTV