Les Cousins DVD 1956 いとこ同志 / Directed by Claude Chabrol / Starring: Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy, Juliette Mayniel

UPC 4933672233277

MADE IN JAPAN

REGION 2 NTSC DVD

Audio: French mono

Subtitles: Japanese

Runtime: 109 minutes

English Summary:

Les Cousins is a 1959 French New Wave drama film directed by Claude Chabrol. It tells the story of two cousins, the decadent Paul and the naive Charles. Charles falls in love with Florence, one of Paul's friends. It won the Golden Bear at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.

Paul, a dissolute, profligate and jaded Parisian, takes in his naïve, innocent and idealistic cousin Charles from the provinces who is something of a mama's boy while they both attend law school. Paul takes Charles to a club at which he meets the beautiful Florence, who has the reputation of being a slut because she has slept around with every man in Paul's circle of friends. She takes an interest in Charles, who knows nothing of her past, and he kisses and falls desperately in love with her.

Paul refuses to study for their law-school exam, cavalierly boasting that he is smart enough to pass it without opening a book, while Charles studies frantically for it in order to make sure that he will not disappoint his mother, to whom he writes daily. But one day, through a misunderstanding, two hours before Charles had told Florence to meet him outside the law school after his class, she comes to meet him at Paul's flat. The only ones there are Paul and Clovis, a thoroughly corrupt friend of Paul's who operates as a kind of hustler, pimp and purveyor of bizarre entertainments for Paul and his friends; Clovis has previously expressed to Florence his disapproval and resentment of her trying to break away from her past by pretending to Charles to be the virtuous maid she isn't. Clovis then lewdly proposes with insidiously lascivious suggestiveness to Florence that she have sex with Paul, to which she succumbs, and they adjourn to the bedroom, so that, by the time Charles comes home he discovers that the Florence he loves has given herself to Paul.

Japanese Summary:

田舎で母親に育てられたシャルル（ジェラール・ブラン）は大学で法学を学ぶため、パリに住む従兄のポール（ジャン＝クロード・ブリアリ）のアパルトマンに移り住む。ポールは女たらしの遊び人であり、アパルトマンに訪れた女が彼の子供を身ごもったことを話すと、ポールは女に金をわたし、中絶を命じて追い払う。パリ見物に誘われたシャルルは、とあるクラブで出会った美女フローランス（ジュリエット・メニエル）に恋をする。翌日行われたパーティーでシャルルはフローランスと心を通わせることになる。さらにその翌日、シャルルはフローランスとデートの約束を取り付けるが、互いに時間を取り違えてしまう。フローランスはポールのアパルトマンでシャルルを待つうちに、ポールに生真面目なシャルルとの恋は上手くいくはずがないと説得され、電撃的にポールに惹かれてしまう。シャルルが帰宅すると、フローランスとポールは同棲を始めることにしたと話す。

Cast / Distribution:

• Gérard Blain as Charles
• Jean-Claude Brialy as Paul
• Juliette Mayniel as Florence
• Guy Decomble as Bookseller
• Geneviève Cluny as Geneviève
• Michèle Méritz as Yvonne
• Corrado Guarducci as Italian Count Minerva
• Stéphane Audran as Françoise
• Paul Bisciglia as Marc
• Jeanne Pérez as Cleaning lady
• Françoise Vatel as Martine