La Pointe Courte
La Pointe Courte is a 1955 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda. It has been cited by many critics as a forerunner of the French New Wave, with the historian Georges Sadoul calling it "truly the first film of the nouvelle vague". The film was shot and takes place in Sète in the south of France, "La Pointe Courte" being a tiny quarter of the town, known as the fisherman's village.
Plot
In La Pointe Courte, the fisherman's quarter of the French Mediterranean port of Sète, the local Board of Health has prohibited the fisherman from harvesting shellfish from a small lagoon, saying it is contaminated with bacteria. The fishermen think politics, not safety, is behind the decision, however, and continue to fish wherever they want, flaunting the rules and oversight with help from their families and community, while they make plans to independently test the water.A young woman arrives on the train from Paris to be with her husband, who arrived five days earlier. She is from Paris, while he grew up in La Pointe Courte, but has not been back for 12 years. The couple have found themselves drifting apart after four years of marriage, and, although she says she only came to tell him that she wants a divorce, she agrees to stick around for a few days and talk about it.
A young fisherman, Raphäel Scotto, is caught breaking the rules by the coastal patrol, who report him. The wife and husband discuss their relationship while they wander around town, her describing her dissatisfaction that their love is not as exciting as it used to be, and him saying that love changes over time. One of the seven young children of a local single mother gets sick and dies.
When the police come to take Raphäel to Montpellier to serve his 5-day jail sentence, the officers allow him to collect his things alone and meet them at the train later, saving him the embarrassment of being seen with them. He passes the house of his girlfriend, Anna Soldino, and her father, Jules, becomes enraged when they smile at each other. Jules thinks Anna is too young to date, but her mother and grandparents think it is alright. The news comes that the water test is positive for bacterial contamination. There is suspicion of foul play, but some fishermen begin to avoid the small lagoon, if only to avoid getting hassled by the authorities.
Talking and spending time where her husband was raised helps the wife to understand him better, and she begins to change her mind about leaving him. They go to the local water jousts, which are held every Sunday in summer, and she is enchanted by the novelty, while he enjoys the nostalgia. Raphäel, who has only served three days of his jail sentence, was able to secure a temporary release to participate, and he acquits himself well, earning the approval of Jules.
That evening, there is a neighborhood party. Raphäel and Anna dance together, and her family enjoys themselves, though they know that having fun does not solve their problems, which will all be waiting for them in the morning. The wife tells her husband that she has come to see the value of their more mature love and that they are bound to each other forever. They walk through the dance and, together, take the train back to Paris.
Cast
- Silvia Monfort as her
- Philippe Noiret as him
Themes
In a 1962 interview, Varda spoke of the two narrative threads present in the film: "a couple reconsidering their relationship and a village that is trying to resolve several collective problems of survival". In her 2018 documentary film The Beaches of Agnès, she says the structure of La Pointe Courte was inspired by William Faulkner's 1939 novel The Wild Palms.In the magazine Cineaste, film journalist Jonathan Kirshner pointed out methods and themes in La Pointe Courte that would recur in Varda's subsequent films, namely "a blend of documentary and fiction, detailed attentiveness to the economic conditions of the working class, subtle observations about the gender dynamics of social and familial relations, and, of course, the notable presence of cats."