The Mother and the Whore 4K 1973 Ultra HD 2160p

Storyline
In Paris, Alexandre, an unemployed young man with memories of the May 1968 events in France, attempts to persuade his former love, Gilberte, to marry him. Gilberte opts to instead marry another man. Alexandre is involved with a live-in girlfriend called Marie, and is interested in films such as The Working Class Goes to Heaven. One day, after an unsuccessful reconciliation with Gilberte at the highly popular Les Deux Magots café, he meets Veronika, a Polish French twenty-something nurse. In the midst of the sexual revolution, Veronika is highly promiscuous, and begins to make advances on Alexandre. During the summer of 1972, Alexandre and Marie are nude in bed in their apartment when Veronika visits. Marie lets her in and Veronika insults both of them, but acknowledges she is not pure herself. The three begin a ménage à trois and sleep in the same bed, with Veronika assuring Alexandre she and Marie both love him, and telling him to be more happy with his situation and life. Although Marie affirms her indifference to Alexandre's affairs, she quickly changes her mind when she sees how close he becomes to Veronika. This leads to a growing estrangement between her and Alexandre. As the three sit together, Veronika attempts to reassure Marie about her looks and body. Tearfully, Veronika speaks about how she believes no women are truly whores, and how love is meaningless unless it produces a child.

User Review
Another beautiful movie.

Although the word “beautiful” doesn't quite fit the definition of this almost three and a half hour masterpiece.....

Rather, it is harmonious.

Like its protagonist Alexandre, wandering around the long-dead Paris. A magnificent ghost, escaped from time and the countless rebirths of this glorious, overcrowded city.

There is no definite, clearly defined plot or for that matter story in “Mommy and the Whore”.

Just the wooden life of one naïve man, floating listlessly through the days. A hero who manages to face all conceivable obstacles without even noticing most of them. And there are not so many if you think about it ...

But that's not really important.

Put aside the plot as the main criterion for evaluating this unusual movie. It's mostly monologue. The lion's share of the entire running time will be devoted to conversations. Opinions and thoughts, laying another brick in the massive wall of the New Wave. And, perhaps, in such details lies its main beauty. You can simply listen to the movie, looking at the screen in the few moments when the ligature of words is interrupted by another miniature panorama of an apartment, a street or a small cafe.

It's a rare occasion when it's the words that linger, not the carefully painted images.

Jean Estache was never a particularly big-name director. A talented man whose life was cut short too soon. Mommy and the Whore is his most famous work.

A film that sums up a whole period.

It doesn't matter that he may not feel quite confident in his current environment. Wobble and fall on the pavement from the numerous perplexed looks of the audience in no way willing to accept the huge timing or the general tension of the plot lines.

There is a lot of unnecessary things here. Sometimes incomprehensible or simply funny. But that's what makes it so wonderful. Even directors independent of monster companies don't make such movies anymore.

Probably, it is even good, because it is almost impossible to recreate the atmosphere of such films, and there are plenty of empty fakes nowadays.

And it's worth your attention and the three and a half hours you'll spend on it.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (53.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Info Audio

#French: FLAC 1.0

Info Subtitles

English (Criterion), Finnish, French SDH, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish (Castilian), Swedish.