Zazie dans le métro (1960)

So last night I watched my first Louis Malle film, Zazie dans le Metro. As part of the BFI’s French Nouvelle Vague season it slotted in perfectly as part of “the movement that changed film culture”. I can’t compare it to the rest of his films because I haven’t seen them but this one basically featured every visual gag conceived on celluloid – not to mention a man in a polar bear outfit shivering on top of the Eiffel Tower – hilarious! Ok, I didn’t sell it, maybe you had to be there.

Based on Raymond Queneau’s novel (1959) of the same title, the film opens with a dizzying POV shot from the front of a train on its way to Paris’ Gare de l’Est. Upon arriving 12-year-old Zazie (Catherine Demongeot) and her mother go separate ways for the duration of two days. Zazie is put into the custody of Uncle Gabriel (Philippe Noiret) whilst her mother enjoys a two day fling with a long distance lover. It is Zazie that Malle follows (almost entirely in fact) in her various escapades around Paris. All modes of transport are used except for the title referencing “metro” as workers have gone on strike – only a minute part of its satirical social commentary on Parisian lifestyle in the early 60s.

A wonderful, charming, crazy slice-of-life only slightly diminished by its fantastically long food-fight at the end. What is it with the French and their food fights? Babette's Feast (1987) anyone?