Movie: "The Hairdresser's Husband" (1990) French w/subtitles

[Bob Pr.]

"Le mari de la coiffeuse" 82 min.; color; not rated, but some scenes are quite erotic (w/o complete nudity); in the subtitles once or twice a word for sexual anatomy is "street" level; & there is a scene with smoking and drunkeness. (From first seeing it 12 years ago, I remembered none of this.)

Roger Ebert, thankfully, very recently included this on his "Great Films" list which made this, a longtime favorite of mine, eligible to show at our monthly "Great Films @ the Cathedral" series. It rates in the 7s (of 10) in IMDb's voting. (I rated it 10/10) All of our audience tonight liked it very much. I was amazed at what I'd forgotten from an earlier viewing (all of the eroticism), what I'd added (more episodes of his dancing but some may have been edited out in the copy we viewed), etc.

All in all, a VERY charming movie (especially so for those who enjoy foreign, indy films).

The director (Patrice Leconte) has a gift for helping us see people from other perspectives (e.g., "The Man on the Train"). As in that movie, Jean Rochefort is the leading character; in this, Anna Galiena is his strikingly beautiful, perfect female lead.

Works of art have no one single meaning; our individual tastes and experiences shape the meanings we derive. But I strongly disagree with the interpretations of this film's narrative described in all the other reviews I've read of this charming movie, thinking my own fits this film better (my clinical psychologist/family & child therapist practice before retiring may be a biasing factor).

Antoine, a boy about 12 years old and on the cusp of puberty, enjoys the sensuality of physical closeness to the woman barber who cuts his hair, his head and eyes often near/on her ample bosom. (So enjoyable, he'd get a haircut every day if his parents allowed it.)

His father has aspirations for his children and, one evening at supper, he asks this son what he wants to be when he grows up. He mistakes Antoine's answer (groping toward his awakening sexuality, saying he wants to marry a woman barber) for a lack of ambition. Strongly disapproving of his son's announced goal, he impulsively over-reacts and slaps him; Antoine quickly runs to his room, locks himself in, and takes comfort in dreams of his adult goal.

Instead of being hurt or angry at his father, Antoine takes further solace in his fantasy, very much as Max did (in quite different ways) in the classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." Whereas Max became king of the Wild Things; the rest of this movie is Antoine's dream of what his future would be when married to a woman barber/hairdresser -- pure bliss.

As in a dream--as in a 12 year old boy's simplified view of what it means to be a married adult and what an adult world is like--many parts of reality are missing. E.g., it's as if Antoine needs no job, as if love and marriage happen in almost an instant, as if his wife's life revolves only about him and his about her, as if all their adult life takes place in his wife's barber shop where he's constantly present, and as if his wife would, of course, prefer death to the slightest risk of losing his complete, ever passionate love.

The somewhat bizarre little recurring dance which he does (IMO) underscores the non-reality, the dream-like quality in the movie--as do the recurring brief appearances of the 12 year old Antoine, peering through windows, "to observe" his later life with a beautiful lady barber.

This is an utterly charming movie of a boy's view of life & the world when he's just coming into puberty, trying to make sense of this delightful experience of being close to a woman's body.

That's the meaning to me and this view is so very compelling I cannot believe the director** intended any other.

FWIW, all others seeing the film tonight for the first time shared my view. (That possibly? was helped by my saying there are 2 views: one, shared by all others, is that the movie is about an adult Antoine accomplishing what he dreamed of doing as a child; the other (mine) is that it follows the plot of "Where the Wild Things Are" except that a pubescent boy's view of adult love and sexuality take the place of Max's "wildness." And, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with that book, I read "WtWTA" out loud, showing the illustrations, just before we saw the film. Giving only that "slight" nudge before the film, afterward, everyone was incredulous there could be any other POV than the one we all shared.)

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** I googled and found a Leconte interview in which he briefly mentions this film--and appears to take the same view of the narrative as all the other reviewers.

Perhaps--he intended the film that way?

OR, possibly?, when so many professional film critics praise this film as a work of art and see the narrative as an actual happening rather than a dream, it's far wiser to go with the flow than to say "all the film critics got it wrong -- Bob Pr. and the group at the Cathedral are the only ones with the correct perspective."???

I suspect Leconte would be wise enough to go with the flow, to not try to swim up Niagra Falls. If professional critics say what you've done is great art viewed this way, why say, "Oh, no! You've got it wrong! You must view it this way."

FWIW, "WtWTA" was first published twenty-seven years (1963) before making this film and then published in 15 different languages (including French in 1973) so Leconte could well have been familiar with it.

See it for yourself and form your own conclusions.

The Hairdresser's Husband :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies

The Hairdresser's Husband (1990) - External reviews

Amazon.com: Where the Wild Things Are (9780060254926): Maurice Sendak: Books