THE PLOT THUS FAR
Joey is a struggling writer with no money. His roommate Carl is a charming stud with a taste for young girls. Together, these two insatiable dreamers will laugh, love and screw their way through a decadent Paris paved with wanton women, wild orgies and outrageous erotic adventures. Based upon the long-banned novel by Henry Miller, QUIET DAYS IN CLICHY is considered to be the most daring film adaptation ever of one of the most controversial authors in history. Now more than 40 years later, this landmark adults only classic can be seen in a new High Definition transfer, completely uncut and uncensored, and featuring the original hit soundtrack by rock legend Country Joe McDonald.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
Suffused with the improvisational playfulness of the French New Wave and brimming with naked flesh and explicit scenes, Jens Jorgen Thorsen’s freewheeling adaptation of Henry Miller’s notorious novel offered a different kind of American in Paris and pushed the boundaries of sex on the screen. America pushed back: the film was seized on charges of obscenity in 1970 and condemned by the Catholic bishops review board. Though hardly tame by modern standards, it’s less an underground classic than a curious timepiece. Paul Valjean is a colorless star, and behind the hedonism and erotic adventures is a chauvinist portrait of sexual relations. Bound by their hedonistic cravings, the periodic conversations the two main characters have with their numerous female companions illustrates what little regard they actually have for these women. As an examination of the early 70′s and the free love movement, this movie reminds me of several others I found far more entertaining.
Miller’s reason to be in our life was his place in moving a barrier of sexual prudishness to a more defensible location. Thus for a decade or so, the arbiters of art celebrated his boldness and the marketplace of prurience sprinkled him about, ensuring that he is “read.” Now, his life seems merely feckless and his art artless. So if you accept this as it was intended and received when new, you’ll be disappointed. All the gas has gone out of that excuse for our time. But I saw this together with “La Dolce Vita.” That film is sublimely competent, a beautiful receptacle whose beauty amplifies its emptiness. So too is the story, about beautiful people with empty lives, people we would just as soon never existed.
So take this as a beat version of that film. Accept its provenance, as a film by a hippie painter, and its proximity to the actual Miller and his actual, now completely worthless life. Take it that way and it works. If you take out the sex scenes, the actual humping, you get a rather well conceived portrait. Its a collection of sequences, each sequence defined by the woman or women who were the target of that sexual encounter. Each woman exists only as a receptacle.
The Blu-Ray comes with the featurette and interviews ported over from the hard-to-find DVD release. The transfer is pitch perfect for a film that’s rarely been seen outside of cult home video outlets. It’s just that certain scenes like the one I snapped below feels like it’s shot out of frame. Due to the loose nature of Jens Jorgen Thorsen’s production, I can’t quite tell what’s guerilla cinema and what’s an amateur mistake. Oh well, there’s pubic hair everywhere in the flick as the nudity grows rampant. You’d expect that from a Henry Miller adaptation. But, it has to be the DTS-HD mono track that caught me off guard with its pristine clarity. If you can handle racy arthouse cinema, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW!
