Viva Maria!

Could there be a better emblem of an era than Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bardot as two revolutionaries in an adventure western? Especially when the film is made by a French director suspended between Hollywood cinema and the aesthetics of the French New Wave. Viva Maria! presents two different attitudes to the struggle for freedom and equality, using comedy to evoke the political mood of the early twentieth century – one that still felt vividly present in the highly politicised 1960s, and perhaps still does today. Louis Malle stages left-wing dilemmas in pop form, wrapping resistance to dictatorship, the Church and capital in exuberant colour. The result is a kaleidoscope of sensations: thrilling in its fights and chases, beguiling in its humour, and dazzling in its costumes and production design. It is exuberant popular cinema, but not without deeper reflection – on its heroines, and on revolution itself.

Michał Konarski

Louis Malle (1932–1995) – French film director and a major figure of postwar European cinema. He studied political science at the Sorbonne before enrolling at IDHEC, and gained early experience as an assistant to Robert Bresson and as a collaborator of Jacques-Yves Cousteau on documentaries, including The Silent World (1956), which won both the Palme d’Or and the Academy Award. He made his feature debut with Elevator to the Gallows (1957), followed by The Lovers (1958), which caused a moral scandal. Loosely associated with the French New Wave (notably Zazie in the Metro [1960]), he developed a distinctive voice, moving fluidly across genres and themes while working in both France and the United States.