This is a grim film. It is certainly not a comedy, and calling it a drama is wrong, as it is not overly concerned with the narratives of its characters' lives. (Calling it a horror movie would be closer to the truth.) It is more like a crafted illustration of the condition of working-class women in Paris at a certain time. And this condition, as depicted here, is bad.
This film was released in the US as "The Good Time Girls", but there is not much of a good time to be had, and watching the film does not offer a good time either.
Four young women work in a small appliance store in Paris. From 9 am to 7 pm, with a couple hours off for lunch, they are together in each other's company, along with the older cashier, amiable enough but not part of their circle. The store never has any customers, so they are stuck looking at each other except when their boss summons them into his office for brief spells of ludicrous flirting and dominance games.
They are shown visiting the zoo on their lunch hour; this is an old-style affair with no attempt to produce a semblance of a natural environment for the monkeys and baboons and tigers - just cells with bars. The metaphor is too obvious to dwell upon. The women mock and tease the animals, in a reflection of the way they themselves are mocked and teased by the men who surround them and form the bars of their own social cells.
The four use their midday and evening hours to try to improve their situation by seeking, cultivating, or hoping for relationships with men, which, of course, is exactly the principle of a thousand novels since Regency times and before: woman's way to happiness and a comfortable life is into the arms of a man. But it's sad (though perhaps healthy, in a cold-water-in-the face way) that a film released in 1960 offers so bleak a vision in comparison with products of earlier decades and centuries. At least some of the men in Austen were tolerable. With two exceptions I can think of, every man in the film is a leering jerk, or worse. Allies are shown to be ... let's say, highly unreliable.
So, this movie is not in my estimation a feminist (or pro-feminist) movie. And that is entirely separate (or is it? That's a discussion) from its having been written and directed by men. Feminism offers answers. It offers courses of action. This movie shows that women are subject to suffering and restriction and violence and captivity, but, for all its characters know or have ever heard, this is the inevitable and permanent state of female life. Perhaps the audience of the film will be moved to read some of the things that its characters will never read. Perhaps this is the idea. Of course, there is always the danger that the audience will just feel more depressed afterward.
On the plus side, the plotting is good. And there is plenty to talk about afterwards. (Like that lucky blessing handkerchief!) So, yes, I think it's worth seeing. Just don't let it ruin your day.
This film was released in the US as "The Good Time Girls", but there is not much of a good time to be had, and watching the film does not offer a good time either.
Four young women work in a small appliance store in Paris. From 9 am to 7 pm, with a couple hours off for lunch, they are together in each other's company, along with the older cashier, amiable enough but not part of their circle. The store never has any customers, so they are stuck looking at each other except when their boss summons them into his office for brief spells of ludicrous flirting and dominance games.
They are shown visiting the zoo on their lunch hour; this is an old-style affair with no attempt to produce a semblance of a natural environment for the monkeys and baboons and tigers - just cells with bars. The metaphor is too obvious to dwell upon. The women mock and tease the animals, in a reflection of the way they themselves are mocked and teased by the men who surround them and form the bars of their own social cells.
The four use their midday and evening hours to try to improve their situation by seeking, cultivating, or hoping for relationships with men, which, of course, is exactly the principle of a thousand novels since Regency times and before: woman's way to happiness and a comfortable life is into the arms of a man. But it's sad (though perhaps healthy, in a cold-water-in-the face way) that a film released in 1960 offers so bleak a vision in comparison with products of earlier decades and centuries. At least some of the men in Austen were tolerable. With two exceptions I can think of, every man in the film is a leering jerk, or worse. Allies are shown to be ... let's say, highly unreliable.
So, this movie is not in my estimation a feminist (or pro-feminist) movie. And that is entirely separate (or is it? That's a discussion) from its having been written and directed by men. Feminism offers answers. It offers courses of action. This movie shows that women are subject to suffering and restriction and violence and captivity, but, for all its characters know or have ever heard, this is the inevitable and permanent state of female life. Perhaps the audience of the film will be moved to read some of the things that its characters will never read. Perhaps this is the idea. Of course, there is always the danger that the audience will just feel more depressed afterward.
On the plus side, the plotting is good. And there is plenty to talk about afterwards. (Like that lucky blessing handkerchief!) So, yes, I think it's worth seeing. Just don't let it ruin your day.