Best movie ever!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A rich man by the name of "Eric Carradine" (Curd Jürgens) wants to build a casino but needs the land owned by working class man named "Antoine Tardieu" (Christian Marquand) and his family. As it so happens, both men know a young and attractive woman named "Juliete Hardy" (Brigitte Bardot) who lives life to the fullest and it's because of her wanton disregard for convention that each want her in the worst possible way. Although Juliette loves Antoine and gives serious consideration to running off with him, she accidentally overhears Antoine bragging to a friend that he plans to sleep with her that night and then cast her aside the next morning. To further complicate matters, upon returning home that evening her foster parents tell her that they have decided to return her to the orphanage within a few days because of her flirtatious conduct. So with nowhere else to go she accepts a sudden marriage proposal from Antoine's younger brother "Michel" (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who absolutely adores her. Needless to say, this infuriates Antoine and the rest of the family who don't think very highly of her at all. Not only that but she doesn't change her conduct in the least--which only intensifies the sexual tension for all concerned. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film created quite a stir when it first came out and it's not hard to imagine why as Brigitte Bardot's performance was absolutely sensational. Having said that, however, I don't think the overall drama was nearly as sharp as it could have been. Additionally, I think it is only fair to say that this film's subject matter pales in comparison to other movies of this type today and with that in mind I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

A parasitic form of life, women love nothing more than being slapped in the face. That's the idea behind Roger Vadim's first movie, which alternative title could be St Tropez… In the Beginning, a quainter than quaint piece, dated before being contemporary. It nevertheless drew massive crowds, and placed Brigitte Bardot's on orbit as THE French sex Goddess. To each his own.Arguing that Vadim was more interested in playing God with women than in cinema undoubtedly has a point. His track record in womanizing is impressive. His writing and directing are far less stellar though, a curious case of zeitgeist marginally interfering with melodrama, present movie being the prefect case study.The mother of Tropezian Tart, Juliette (BB) is a despicable tease and a sloth. She wants to be happy and makes everyone miserable in the process; she is a black hole of selfishness and stupidity. Far above her head when it comes to even wake up, she sow frustration and destruction wherever she goes, barefoot, under St Tropez's stupid, selfish sun. She's in love, but not quite, with one guy whose brother Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant, handsome in his prime) she will marry, precipitating a not very interesting chain of events including guns, a juke box, a torrid mambo scene and Curt Jurgens as the cosmopolitan vile seducer without whom the whole piece would play out like Marcel Pagnol.Bardot is a complete cipher, reluctant to act as to be filmed. She either pouts in rebellion or pouts in lascivious oblivion of said rebellion. She's the French Megan Fox, at an antiquated time when a novelty actress career could last for more than three movies. Jurgens is straight out of an Eddie Constantine movie and Trintignant, still inexperienced, is by far the best of the lot.Scenes abruptly fade to black after half hearted one-liners, leading to nothing but the oh-so-slow build-up of a presumably dramatic end but fear not, if you have the leisure of feeling involved between two yawns, nothing bad will happen and the status quo will prevail. "I would like to think of nothing", says Bardot, meaning herself, then she dances in front of a mirror since she only likes herself and not even that much. A couple of slaps later she's back in the marital bed; a sex Goddess indeed.Vadim and Bardot kinda invented reality TV, And God Created Woman a precursor of Temptation in the Kardashian Island. Is that worth of your time 60 years later? Definitely not, according to Vadim, whose last movie was a remake of the same, featuring Rebecca de Mornay, the American Brigitte Bardot. Sigh.

Is that supposed to be a joke?! What an awful film. *Extremely sexist and absolutely nonsense.* I mean, Brigitte Bardot's is only there to show her legs and semi-nude body _ of course, she's stunning. But why exploit her in such an outrageous and blatant manner? There is no character development whatsoever, we simply get to see a few caricatures; stereotyped characters popping out of nowhere while the leads_"also stereotypes, the 'whore' horny wife married to the 'typical' husband who loves his wife but needs to defend his honor_" and the couple is either *beep* or talking nonsense. There is also a background story between the husband and a bald old rich man who wants to buy his supposedly 'valuable' lands, story which is left unsolved at the end. Is really a miserable, nonsense screenplay. *More nonsense...* Also, why Bardot's character was shooting people in the street? I mean what the hell?! Probably the best example I could give of how nonsensical and moronic this film is. The ending is almost as moronic as this scene too. *DESPITE being extremely screwed, the editing makes the film interesting (at times...)* Yes. Is a very screwed editing work, have no doubts about it. BUT...it actually worked sometimes. In the first half of the film, there is really a nice pace -and not so many nonsense going on- and the film got even watchable at some point, and really interesting to look at DESPITE EVERYTHING. But the second half of the film is absolutely awful in that aspect. *Conclusion* I can firmly say there was no intention in telling a story in that film. The only thing director Roger Vadim wanted to do was show Bardot's semi-nude body, arousing the man around her. I said it. There is simply no artistic values in this film, there is no craft put in this film, there isn't even enough effort put in this film. Horrible. No matter how bad the censorship "cut" this film at the time, there is simply no excuse to why it sucks so bad.

"the problem with the future is that it always ruins the present", says Bardot at the beginning. my intuition relates this sentence with some of the role this picture would perform in cinema context in years to come.This is a really important film. From a sociological and cinematic point of view. Nevertheless, it is NOT a good film. It hasn't got a strong plot, a strong idea nor strong performers. But it has BB and a boiling revolution in cinema that was to come in just 4 years and that shows its claws here.Social phenomenaBrigitte Bardot popped out here. The first scene grants her a place in collective imagination of the western society. The rest of the film defines a new personality for sex symbol. The one which is not so much different than the ordinary person, only more beautiful. This is her film, and she's the only one you will remember after a very short time after watching it (her, not the character).Cinematic issues(1) I can't tell exactly how far Vadim was self-aware about what he was doing here, or if he predicted that he was, probably, beginning something which would bring consequences to our days. Anyway, what he wanted to tell with this picture, was his own story, in which Bardot was, at this moment, the main character. Carradine (Jürgens) was, i suspect, Vadim himself. Bardot is liberal, does whatever she wants, out of innocence and joy. Carradine is experienced, sees everything, or at least knows about it, allows everything, but always controlling in the distance, always caring for what happens and always planning over it.(2) The composition is not old fashioned anymore, even though the plot line and themes depicted could report to some classical light comedy, used to exhaustion until then. The camera movements are bold, though useless most of the times, Vadim is trying to change, even though he wasn't competent enough to make it worthwhile (that job would go to Godard, mainly, and Truffaut). Also the development-climax-conclusion form doesn't apply so clearly here.So, this film is (1) self-referential to its author and (2) searching a personal innovative way to expose a story (film about cinema). That makes it maybe the first nouvelle vague constructed film, 3 years before "4 cents..." and 4 before "a bout de soufflé". Here, as with Barbarella, Vadim introduces elements of innovation, that would change pop thinking and pop culture, without producing really good watchable films, almost on the contrary.My evaluation: 3/5 This an important worthwhile seeing NOT good film.