Une partie de plaisir (1975)

Director:

Claude Chabrol

Writer:

Paul Gégauff (written by)

Release Date:

15 January 1975 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Phillipe and Esther live an apparently idyllic life with their daughter, Elise. In an attempt to preserve this bliss...

Cast

Danièle Gegauff	...	Esther
Paul Gégauff	...	Philippe
Clemence Gégauff	...	Elise
Paula Moore	...	Sylvia Murdoch
Cécile Vassort	...	Annie
Giancarlo Sisti	...	Habib
Mario Santini	...	Rosco
Michel Valette	...	Katkof
Pierre Santini	...	Michel
Henri Attal	...	Le codétenu
Jean Cherlian
Jacqueline Clément
Alain David
Tony Librizzi
Dominique Marcas

Also Known As:

A Piece of Pleasure (International: English title)
Pleasure Party (USA)
Una gita di piacere (Italy)
Ein lustiges Leben (West Germany) [de]
El juego del placer (Argentina) [es]
Erotiko party (Greece) [el]
Katkera vapaus (Finland) [fi]
Raffinerade nöjen (Sweden) [sv]
Una fiesta de placer (Spain) [es]

Runtime:

Argentina:97 min | USA:100 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | Argentina:16

Company:

Gerico Sound

Ambitious but overlong and not entirely successful immorality play

'Une Partie de Plaisir' is minor Chabrol and has many of the problems of his considerably worse 'L'Enfer.' It's another morality tale cum horror story, with swinger Paul Gegauff's marriage and world coming unstuck after he encourages his wife to have affairs. It's not that she sleeps with other men when he clearly was expecting her not to, but that instead of deriving all her ideas from him she starts to take them from her lovers as well and gradually, as her dependency on him lessens, his need to mould and control her grows until he can no longer live with her or without her. While it never falls into L'Enfer's farcical inadvertent comedy, it shares a tiringly repetitive third act where the only way to top one outrage is with another, until it becomes comic and rather boring. Screenwriter Gegauff's performance in the lead is brave but not always entirely successful, his face veering between a very literal copy of the two stone masks of Greek tragedy and comedy to an almost frightening degree as the film progresses.

Interesting, brave but not entirely successful, it's a film I doubt I'll feel any compulsion to return to in the future.