'Le repos du guerrier' is characterized by its mood. A slow, laid-back, not to say inert mood. Getting into it is an absolute condition to appreciate this movie, I think. Otherwise watching will be very boring.

However, I detected one scene that may unite appreciators and non-appreciators. Its jazz-tune, somewhere halfway this movie, really is very good.

All in all a movie with an unususal thin story, even for Bardot-standards. That may be inspired by the Italian Fellini/Antonioni-movies, whcih were very fashionable in 1962. If 'repos' provides us with any theme, it's about the battle of the sexes. Brigitte comes out victorious: a foregone conclusion, given the nitwit-character of her male counterpart.

This film had some charm by the time it was made. BB was in a great shape. The youth in occident were strongly influenced by a fashion based on a vulgar reading of existentialist philosophy. The first time I saw this film, during the sixties, I was 17 or 18, and a kind of a "rebel without a cause", fond of existentialist literature. So the film impressed me.

Today, seeing the film again, I found it almost stupid. I explain.

1. The revolt of Renaud is not explained in a context, so we don't know exactly why he is bitter, cynic, self destructive and iconoclast.

2. The author of the story tries to glamorize Renaud revolt, but, what I see can't be glamorized. For instance, Renaud wears the same unwashed clothes during several weeks (which seems to be the time the story lasts) doesn't take a bath and doens't shave his beard. He smokes all the time and drinks heavily since the time he wakes up. So, his clothes and his breath certainly stink disgustingly. He messes seriously Geneviève's apartment spreading all around dirty dishes and ash trays stuffed with smoked cigarettes. All this mess and dirtiness for nothing... or to punish unjustly Geneviève?

3. Geneviève looks rather as stupid blonde female because she falls in love with a stinking revolted pseudo-existentialist who does't do anything useful to anyone and criticize hardly the middle class life style, middle class of which he is actually a parasite.

The film deserves to be seen because of the presence of BB. She was marvelous by that time and a real icon of a generation. A queen of many dreamers as me.

The title of my review ought to be enough to scare off the folks who are expecting a plot-driven, digestible story. You'll get none of that here.

Although there is indeed a plot (a rather interesting one, if you ask me), the power of this film lies not in the story but in the script and in the subtle, almost indecipherable fragments of philosophy we experience through these two highly complex characters.

Geneviève (Bardot) is the the romantic. Her counterpart Renaud (Hossein) is the cynic. The collision of their worlds causes a catastrophic upheaval in both of their lives. But it is undeniable that they need each other, just as the two opposing philosophies rely on each other. Sort of a yin-yang thing. At times they are at war with each other; at times they cling to each other for life; at times they threaten to annihilate the other absolutely. This is some really heavy stuff that cannot possibly be summarized in a few paragraphs, so I won't even try.

There are several monologues which are so stirring I want to learn them by heart. Particularly the last two speeches in the final 10 mins of the film. Pay close attention to those words, because they sum up the entire theme of the film. Powerful. Powerful.