Sandra’s twin sister is dead. Both sisters were not in touch for quite a long time; mainly because they were so different: to make it simple, Sandra was the Good girl, and her sister the Bad one. Now the dead sister invites Sandra to have a taste of what her supposedly easy way of life was really like. She sends her the keys of her flat, warning her that many other people have these keys as well. That’s the beginning of the story. And normally in most porn stories you would expect Sandra to become as depraved as her sister but indeed in this movie Sandra’s behaviour becomes more and more ambiguous. What is happening to her?
I consider Kikoïne to be the best French porn director of this era. To the credit of this movie, which is the best Kikoïne I’ve seen so far, one can add the music, which is varied and fits well to the various situations; actors performances are very good also: Irissou as a bad guy, Armand as a horny (and hooked!) concierge, Géral as a megalomaniac Belgian porn actor, Florès as a nymphomaniac British lesbian and Marc Winandy as a dumb guard; and also the plot: whereas the basic idea is not that original but the way it is developed offers a lot of surprises. Indeed the ending of the movie is truly unexpected and bizarre.
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The “enfant terrible” of European erotica par excellence, Gérard Kikoïne always seemed most at home when exploring the darker side of people’s sexuality and the often extraordinary lengths to which they were prepared to go in order to keep up the superficial appearance of respectability in a deeply hypocritical society. The comfortable middle classes, natural habitat to his fellow filmmaker at Alpha France Claude Bernard-Aubert proved his favorite target, making him something of a sex saga sibling to the lauded likes of Claude Chabrol and Luis Bunuel. Many of Kikoïne’s films offer up vitriolic attacks on the shaky values of “polite” society but he has never taken matters as far as in Bourgeoise et… pute!, an almost casually cruel comedy of reprehensible manners and arguably his masterpiece. The criminally underrated Cathy Menard shines as outwardly prim Muriel, goody two shoes twin sister of slutty Sandra who has taken her life prior to the film’s proceedings. Confiding in a letter to her sibling that she chose her depraved existence as a means to distinguish and distance herself from the enforced propriety that comes with comfortable surroundings, Sandra offers Muriel the key to her apartment and therefore the opportunity to take a walk on the wild side by assuming her “deceased” sister’s identity. The ease with which Muriel accepts this offer at first seems emblematic of Kikoïne’s jaundiced view of mankind and its phony sense of dignity. A supposed paragon of virtue, she meets a veritable rogues gallery of characters, each one seedier than the last, starting with stuttering, hook-handed janitor Jean-Pierre Armand demanding the rent being paid in kind. A client of Sandra’s, bank manager Gilbert Servien, interviews her for a secretarial job prior to taking attendant liberties in a classic scene mixing Kikoïne’s sick sense of humor with intense carnal heat. Presiding over a frenzied porno shoot, Muriel orchestrates a bondage heavy threesome between superstar Marilyn Jess (wearing a Bettie Page wig), the magnificent Marianne Aubert and bespectacled Hubert Géral as the dildo-wielding stud. Olivia Flores delivers a standout turn as the arrogant, hilariously Franglais spouting lesbian who finds blind-folded comeuppance at Muriel’s behest. An elegantly depraved party sequence has her mingling with Eurasian Mika Barthel and gorgeous Eric Saville by far the best-looking male performer in ’80s French fornication flicks.The actor portraying Muriel’s mustachioed milquetoast husband Pierre, who figures in the film’s sophisticated twist ending, has only been credited as “Thierry”.
Sandra’s alliance with a petty thief, played by Dominique Irissou, effectively leads Muriel towards a life of crime as she becomes instrumental in an upcoming bank job. To assure her loyalty, she’s mauled by a pair of middle-aged masterminds, one of whom is Jacques Marbeuf along with a grotesquely slobbering turncoat security guard played by Marc Winandy. The intended theft goes awry with rape and murder further staining the status Muriel seeks to protect in the film’s explosive climax. Only then does the audience realize that the entire story has actually been told in flashback from the opening “funeral” onwards and that there never was an actual twin sister; only the slutty alter ego that allowed Muriel to indulge those sleazy fantasies she was forced to suppress in daily life.
Kikoïne went all out in representing sex as grotesque, an irresistible driving force that reduces characters to caricatures. Adopting a superior position as head-shaking storyteller of this farce of human foibles, this approach is emphasized by the spectacular camera work of Gérard Loubeau, favoring the distancing effect of long shots and wide angle distortion.The use of sound f/x is sophisticated and a variety of musical styles are employed to suit the nature of each scene, none better than the haunting jazzy theme song heard at film’s deceptively serene start.
http://nitroflare.com/view/6A1338AD93F5E6B/bourgeoises_et…_pute_1982.mkv
Language(s):French
Subtitles:None
