The title is revealing but probably misguiding. One woman who is drowning will drown her own husband who is trying to rescue her: possessiveness in death. She took him to paradise. The second wants total submission in the two partners and she castrates her husband of his desire to have a friend, a male friend. The third one wants to absolutely possess her partner but she also wants to be able to flutter around. Her man will end up killing himself in the mountain since he could not get over her the complete possession she had over him. In other words it is a bleak world and even a sad world. There is no hope for love, real love. Love is nothing but a trap in which the human rats we are accept to survive in order to have a social dimension and a domestic comfort we would not have otherwise. With age this film that used to be a cult film when it came out has become a rather trite story. I remember watching it in 1973 or so in Davis, California. It was on campus a film appreciated by women in the name of a certain vision of women's liberation, and by gays for the vision of male friendship between two men. I am quite disappointed today with the feeling I have just watched a piece of ancient anthropological discovery.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID