VIVA MARIA! 1965

The parts of the movie that work, do so brilliantly, like nuggets stuck in dough. Two French women named Marie (Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau) meet up in South America and become revolutionaries while also working in a traveling circus. The magician’s bird can appear and disappear in wondrous ways, and later delivers bombs, flying in through one window, out the next, followed by the boom! But, for me, Bardot stole the show. Daughter of an Irish revolutionary, she starts out life as his accomplice, and is most accomplished with all manner of weaponry, such as blowing up bridges. Later, in South America, she is also completely sexually unabashed, and chalks up the names of lovers till she runs out of wall space. George Hamilton is a revolutionary peasant leader, who wins Moreau. Changing their names to Maria, the two women create a popular circus act that incorporates the striptease they invent. Although Moreau won a foreign actress award for the film over Bardot, this was for me Bardot’s film. She runs around in men’s clothes and a cap like a little elf. She walks off as if transfixed into a carriage with three waiting men, and returns the next morning with her gown all tore up, with bruises on her arm, declaring to the effect that no experience was ever more glorious. There is virtually no nudity despite the striptease theme, but there is the proposition that women can be extremely sexy and “feminine” while being superior in warfare, and can lead a revolution to boot. I’d recommend it for that and for Bardot’s performance. Louis Malle directs.