Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974)

 

Extremely surreal French flick about a girl who may be a murderer, artist, witch, prostitute or all of the above accused of murdering her mother, friend, lawyer or all of the above.... or none of the above.  Fuck, I was completely lost.

Alice (Anicée Alvina) is a strange girl accused of murder

A police officer (Jean-Louis Trintignant) questions her at the scene

Nora (Olga Georges-Picot) is the victim, stabbed to death

What's Nora's relationship to Alice?  At one point she's said to be her mother... but not really sure about anything in this film.

Alice sometimes just randomly screams at the camera

The detective (Michael Lonsdale) presents her with the murder weapon - a broken bottle

Alice answers his questions - so to speak

So, Alice recounts the events led up to the murder - she says someone broke in and killed Nora.  She was painting her.... or something like that.

But is Nora even a real person?  We also see that Alice is an artist - making mannequins. 

Alice poses for a police  photographer (Hubert Niogret)

Alice describes an incident (unrelated to the murder) where a fellow student fell off a cliff to her death.  She finds her body, unbuttons her blouse and.... kisses her.

The detective arrives for another round of questions

The random nudity in this film is what makes this all tolerable.

Nora seems like she's an automaton, or a mannequin come to life... not sure what's up.

Like I said, there's a blurry line between living beings and mannequins in this film.

Alice puts eggs on Nora (her mother?)

So, in addition to possibly being a witch, Alice is also possibly a prostitute

She takes this gent home who meets Nora

Alice is naked in bed and pretends to be a mannequin (or dead?)

He pours a red liquid on her.

Alice is assigned a defense attorney - who is the spitting image of Nora.

Alice is kept at a convent

The other girls boarding here

Um, okay. This dark haired student is tortured?

Alice's attorney shows up at the convent and meets another student Claudia (Marianne Eggerickx)

Claudia is a popular girl - she's also receiving attention from Sister Julia (Claude Marcault)

Alice finds her attorney fooling around with Claudia

Some cool settings, such as this church's storage room

Sister Julia presents Alice with the dead girl's shoe

Sister Maria (Nathalie Zeiger)

Sister Maria questions Alice

Sister Maria out of her habit

Claudia in the convent dungeon

Alice is questioned by a priest (Jean Martin)

Alice paints herself with red paint then rolls on the walls

The attorney takes a drink offered by Alice - which is apparently drugged

Alice murders the attorney with the scissors - and the scene repeats itself exactly as it had with Nora

The police are about to release Alice as she was found not guilty; but now with the attorney dead, they'll have to start over. THE END

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This film made zero sense to me.  I'm sure I could try and conjure up some theories, but don't care enough to even spitball.  I have to give the director some credit - the film is beautiful (if not macabre at times) - each frame an impressively artful conception.  Anicée Alvina is gorgeous, and often naked, making it rather hard to hate on this.  

 ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆6/10