Synopsis
Simone and Martine are usherettes in a porno cinema in Montparnasse. Installed in the hall, they greet regulars, put men in their place, chat and pass the time. At midnight Simone departs to a lesbian nightclub.
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Simone Barbès or Virtue
Cast
Director
Producers
Writers
Editor
Cinematography
Assistant Director
Lighting
Camera Operator
Production Design
Composer
Sound
Makeup
Studio
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Simone Barbes oder die Tugend, Simone Barbes or Virtue, Simone Barbes ou la vertu, Simone Barbès or Virtue
Genre
Releases by Date
Premiere
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Canada
Toronto Film Festival
11 Nov 2016
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Japan
Hiroshima International Film Festival
Theatrical
27 Feb 1980
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France
24 Apr 1981
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USA
Releases by Country
Canada
12 Sep 1980
- Premiere Toronto Film Festival
France
27 Feb 1980
- Theatrical
Japan
11 Nov 2016
- Premiere Hiroshima International Film Festival
USA
24 Apr 1981
- Theatrical New York City, New York
Popular reviews
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Kind of a perfect film in miniature, a real-time document of little more than an uneventful night out that recalls a queer version of one of Rohmer's effortless microdramas. Each of Marie-Claude Treilhou’s three scenes — the end of a shift working at a straight porno theater, a trip to a lesbian bar, driving home with a stranger — couldn’t be more stylistically or tonally different, but combined create a portrait of urban loneliness and a flippant commentary on patriarchal control that’s never anything less than totally entertaining or quietly moving. I loved this.
I’d be shocked if this wasn’t an influence on Théo & Hugo and (especially) Knife + Heart.
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the erotic fantasies of men sealed away behind cheap panelling, escaping quietly but audibly while working-class women talk of the world outside as comedy and melodrama. the male gaze scorned by a pair of giant, tacky neon eyes; the vulgarity of the world met with exactly the personal vulgarity it merits. a private joke, told in a dark stretch of road just before dawn
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Turn the street lights off and let the sun come. Hard to think of a film more full of life: the behavioral examination is great, there is just something about how these nocturnal characters live and interact that is very much human. Three segments, one consisting of men circulating and being guided towards voyeurism, another one of a working woman staying silent in a corner being the voyeur herself, and a weirdly spiritual epilogue that is really undefinable. A hidden gem.
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In this mercurial queer film, both gritty and sumptuous, the nighttime is the right time to explore the porous borders of social convention. In underground spaces, from the lesbian nightclub to the porn theater, lovers and strangers live out their apparent contradictions under cover of darkness.
Now streaming (almost) globally.
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In 2020, in response to a question about the silent weeping of the Volvo owner (played by film critic Michel Delahaye) in the final scene of Simone Barbes or Virtue, director Marie-Claude Treilhou said the following:
As for the tears? It’s nothing. I mean, it’s a moment of emotion. You know, he doesn’t want her anymore. He doesn’t want anything. He’s just come back to himself. It’s a moment of loneliness. I don’t know, I really can’t say more than that. [x]
Treilhou's answer is one that seems to apply to the film as a whole, too: it's profound, but it's not; hugely meaningful, but also just a fleeting moment, gone almost before it begins.
People live the way they… -
hay un momento en la última escena de esta maravillosa obra maestra de Marie-Claude Treilhou, donde Simone y el croupier que le acompaña en el coche se despiden, después de confesarse a medias todas sus miserias, que resume perfectamente la escalofriante fuerza de esta película. La directora filma a ambos dentro del vehículo frontalmente, ella a la derecha y él a la izquierda. Ella le dice que lleva dos años siendo gogó (realmente nunca la vemos ejerciendo, quizás sea mentira). Suspira, lamentándose: "¡Dos años!". Y luego, el momento extraordinario, se produce un silencio, y la directora corta a un reencuadre sólo de ella mirándole a él, fuera de foco, a punto de decirle algo. Quizás de decirle la verdad, o…
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Simone Barbès se divide entre o foyer de um cinema pornô e um nightclub lésbico (o clima é de David Neves no território de Virginie Despentes). Na primeira das locações, a personagem-título comanda a vivacidade dos vais e vens: ela organiza a ação e os impulsos voyeurísticos dos homens; Simone é maestrina e inspetora dos desejos ondulantes. Já na casa noturna, ela se retrai. Ao invés de se impor no espaço, percorrendo-o e, dessa maneira, tomando-o para si, ela se recolhe em um canto, onde permanece como que acuada pelas outras mulheres e pelo seu próprio desejo, assumindo o papel de voyeur — numa inversão da correlação de forças prévia, o ambiente passa a ditar o comportamento dela e não…
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the porn theater in the film was showing something called “take me quick i’m wet” and the whole time i thought it was the name of this movie
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sat by the door. drowning out walls of noise as they become second nature. alert and tense; interaction as service.
as you disappear into the night, others feel more tangible. moving with passion in familiar spaces. yet you remain distant, waiting for the one connection.
take the wheel and drive. a heart-to-heart between two lonely souls might just set you both free. if only for tonight.