Ever wonder what would have happened in on screen meetings between, say, Jean Gabin and Mae West, Shirley Temple and Toshiro Mifune, Mastroianni and Louise Brooks? Here, it could be said, the character played by the young Jean-Pierre Léaud in a variety of films meets an atypically voluptuous Mike Leigh female, a bilingual one, with better French, and English for that matter, than that of Grace Elliot in Rohmer's recent and wondrous "L'Anglaise..." A sadly trivial approach to a film whose complexities I love, but several months have elapsed. Details blur. I know the scene in the ship's bar, maybe with a dance floor, was special. An at least slightly appropriate touchpoint for "Brève traversée" might be the Lucie-in-the-park element of "La Femme de l'aviateur," a film I did re-watch and comment recently. My comment there, though, is aimed mostly at any who've already seen it. "Tadpole" would be more of a stretch, maybe an inappropriate one, though it works better here if you take just Neuwirth and forget Weaver.
Review of Brief Crossing
