A Prisioneira

Elisabeth Wiener is in an open marriage with artist Bernard Fresson. His work is part of an exhibition by art dealer Laurent Terzieff to promote his becoming a 'supermarket of modern art' to sell to all the people who are moving into apartments and need something to put on their walls: lots of kinetic op-art. While Fresso goes off with a drunk art critic to earn better reviews, Mlle Weiner accepts an invitation from Terzieff to see the art he has at home. Surprising to her, there are a lot of primitive native pieces, quite distinct from the sort of thing he sells. He shows her his own artistic side, which is a slide show of words from manuscripts, showing the different way that different writers write 'rien'... and a nude woman in a strikingly submissive position. She leaves, then visits him in his office, where he explains that everyone likes to take orders, to submit, to be relieved of the responsibility of making decisions. First with a model, then on her own, Mlle Wiener returns to Terzieff's apartment, falling in love with him, submitting to him.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's last complete movie is another one in a long series in which he makes it clear he has absolute contempt for humanity. Here he attempts to show us why we are so contemptible, how we fool ourselves into degradation, how we excuse ourselves, and fool no one but ourselves. His technique here is a lot colder than when he began to do this in the 1940s. It looked to me as if this was his reaction to Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM except he offers no excuses, no reasons why people are the way they are. He just shows them as he sees them, and allows us to draw our own conclusions.