Patricia Plattner's Les Petites Couleurs (2005)

Generally considered as Patricia Plattner's best film, this is one of several she made of women recovering their dignity and their independence. And it's a little gem. Battered by her husband Francis (Christian Grégori), hairdresser Christelle (Anouk Grinberg) escapes with her brand new, technologically advanced hairdressing machine, driving until she chances upon the Hôtel Galaxy, a place which has a very masculine atmosphere and live acts in the evening, but is run by the firm, no-nonsense-taking Mona (Bernadette Lafont).

Christelle is very fragile, cowed into submission over many years by her terrifying husband, and when she confesses to Mona that she has no money because Francis controls the banking, Mona melts. Christelle now has a job at the hotel, so she can stay there as long as she likes. Furthermore, she discovers an old, disused VW van on the hotel premises, which Mona has forgotten about and Christelle renovates, allowing her to re-begin her business as a neighbourhood, travelling hairdresser.

But she doesn't do this without the help of the gentle trucker Lucien (Philippe Bas), who becomes obsessed with Christelle, although Christelle takes a long time to respond to Lucien's attentions, at first treating the relationship on a brother-sister level: but then, she has a long history of abuse to recover from, and hormones aren't the first thing on her mind: she slowly has to become a new woman, not an appendage to a male.

Bernadette Lafont never appeared in one of Jacques Demy's films, although the ficticious television programme that Mona and Christelle love to watch, 'Le Ranch de l'amour', is an obvious wink to such all-singing Demy films as Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and Une chambre en ville. A joy to watch.

Patricia Plattner's Bazar (2009)

This may not be Patricia Plattner's most successful film, although it's highly entertaining, and an interesting study of ageist and classist behaviour. Plattner was a friend of Bernadette Lafont, who was quite a Nouvelle Vague figure in her time, starring in Truffaut's short Les Mistons (1957) and Eustache's epic masterpiece La Madam et la putain (1973). She died four years after the making of this film. And this was in fact Plattner's final film: she died in 2016 aged sixty-three.

Lafont plays Gabrielle, an antiquarian who is evicted from her shop and falls into the arms of the handsome working-class Fred (Pio Marmaï), who at twenty-five is forty years younger than Gabrielle. Of course it can't last, but the righteous indignation of her peers is evidently not shared by the viewer: it's a treat to see Gabrielle living her brief dream. One of the most amusing scenes for me is when Fred interrupts a conversation between Gabrielle and her daughter Elvire (Lou Doillon): he's naked apart from an open shirt, his penis dangling unselfconsciously.

François Truffaut's Les Mistons | The Brats | The Kids (1958)

Maurice Pons published a series of stories in 1955, out of which came Truffaut's short. Les Mistons (translated as The Brats, The Kids or The Mischief Makers) is under eighteen minutes long, and features Bernadette (Bernadette Lafont), Gérard (Gérard Blain), five pre-adolescents and the voice-over by Michel François. This short concerns five schoolboys following Bernadette as she leaves her bicycle by a tree to bathe (during which time they smell the saddle), they watch her kiss Gérard and follow the lovers to various places such as the arena in Nîmes. She later learns of his death. Elements in this film obviously predate Truffaut's later films.

Bernadette Lafont became a nouvelle vague muse, she played in Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1957) with her husband, and then in Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). She also worked with many other demanding directors, including Truffaut, Edouard Molinaro, Costa-Gavras, Louis Malle and Jean-Daniel Pollet.