The Smugglers / A Girl is a Gun
- This is a past program
Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series Luc Moullet: A Retrospective. Learn more at cinema.ucla.edu.
The Smugglers (Les Contrebandières, 1968)
New digital restoration!
The rugged beauty of the French Alps is an intense backdrop for any story and Luc Moullet makes the most of the contrast with his shaggy satire of the action film. A customs agent runs a smuggling operation across the border of two fictional warring countries keeping a romantic partner on either side of the demarcation line to help. When the two women discover each other, they form an uneasy trio running contraband, evading the authorities, producing agitprop and negotiating modern sexual mores. Moullet throws touches of surrealism and the nonsensical into the unstable mix.
DCP, b&w, in French with English subtitles, 81 min. Director: Luc Moullet. Screenwriter: Luc Moullet. With: Françoise Vatel, Monique Thiriet, Johnny Monteilhet.
A Girl is a Gun (Une aventure de Billy le Kid, 1971)
New digital restoration!
Luc Moullet shares directing credit with his wife and frequent collaborator, Antonietta Pizzorno, on this earnest exploration of the breakdown of a relationship that doubles as a knowing takedown of the solipsistic men who make them. Intimate in form and content, the entire piece unfolds in tight interior spaces roiled by social and cultural forces outside. There’s no shortage of cringe moments as He (Moullet) struggles to maintain his dignity and She (Christine Hébert) lays bare her dissatisfaction and desire for change with their back and forth culminating in a meta struggle for control of the camera itself.
DCP, b&w, in French with English subtitles, 82 min. Directors: Luc Moullet, Antonietta Pizzorno. Screenwriters: Luc Moullet, Antonietta Pizzorno. With: Luc Moullet, Christine Hébert, Antonietta Pizzorno.
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