Knave of Hearts

Watch this and you'll think it's New Wave. But it's not. It's better. It's what came before and was later rebranded. French cinema was liberated long before the sixties and did not suffer the same sort of censorship as American. I don't know if American cinema of the fifties has to offer anything similar to Monsieur Ripois. Here is this perfectly charming man who is also a parasite that you cannot help but like because he is also childish. Rarely does a film show a narcissist as someone to feel pity for. This one offers, in my opinion, an accurate aspect of the disorder. He is his own worst enemy. But it's really the acting that makes this character so convincing. Learning French with Gerard Philipe in this film is one of the funniest movie scenes I've seen. The women he meets are all better than him, yet they all fall for him. He truly falls for one of them. Quite literally. A very refreshing take on the battle of the sexes free of today's mores. Looks like women were able to take care of themselves over the past century. It's not the New Wave.