The Hairdresser's Husband (Le Mari de la Coiffeuse)

In collaboration with the French Institute of Greece on the occasion of the French National Day.

Directed by: Patrice Leconte
Starring: Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena, Roland Bertin, Evelyne Aillot
Duration: 82 minutes
Year of Production: 1990

It’s not easy to explain to someone who didn’t experience it what the arrival of The Hairdresser's Husband on the big screens in 1990 really meant. It was as if it single-handedly brought the new European decade, as if it ensured that the cinema of that era would immediately come to know what nostalgic charm, melodic passion, obsessive persuasion, and romantic excitement really meant. Patrice Leconte had already shaped his style with the previous year’s (Georges Simenon-based) Monsieur Hire, yet honestly, no one could have expected from him a film like this one.

And yet... Was it because the world was still untainted and looked only at the screen ahead? Was the audience unprepared (but so fertile) to welcome such an exquisitely fetishistic gaze? Was it the unforgettable Arabic melodies and Michael Nyman’s soundtrack? Or was it the “male gaze” that could still then not be so negatively charged, and the “object of desire” so positively portrayed? Who knows? Perhaps everything was fresher then, perhaps people could still fall in love with the world of a film.

Whatever the case may be, the fact remains—and for some still remains—that this Husband was fortunate in its time, enriched the trajectory of its director during the decade, gave the veteran giant Jean Rochefort a sublime leading role, and since then has scented with powder and cologne the lives of countless cinephiles. Welcome him; he knows how to reciprocate. Ilias Dimopoulos