MESSIDOR Movie Review

An acutely bored university student (Clementine Amoroux) meets a shop assistant (Catherine Retore) while hitchhiking. They decide to travel together across a desolate, faceless, modern Europe, stealing what they need when they run out of money. This poetic, elegant, and disturbing parable about a generation blessed with everything but purpose is one of Swiss director Alain Tanner's most experimental works. It may add up to less than the sum of its beautiful parts, but many of the images and incidents—visually stunning and paced with the slow inevitability of a dream—will stay with you long afterward.

NEXT STOP … La Salamandre, Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, Butterfly Kiss

1977 118m/C SI Clementine Amouroux, Catherine Retore, Franziskus Abgottspon, Gerald Battiaz, Hansjorg Bedschard; D: Alain Tanner; W: Alain Tanner; C: Renato Berta; M: Arie Dzierlatka. VHS NYF, FCT