Too much of everything

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The title of this film, "Messidor", denotes the first summer month in the calender of French revolution, derived from French "moisson" which means harvest. However, this explains the title, but not the content of this movie. Latin "metere" also means to butcher somebody.The films does not make it quite clear which is the reason why the two young women break out of their families. Is it because they have everything they need and they just want to experience the life of the needy? Is it a protest against bourgeois society (at least we are at the end of 70ies)? Are they really inspired by French or German terrorist movements (as the police assumes)? When she is asked by a stranger woman, Marie says their reason is "the experience of empty time in empty space". Thus, the experiment. How far do you come with zero Swiss francs in your purse? How different are the reactions of those when you have nothing compared to earlier when you were able to pay them? Who is actually willing to give you a little salami, although he hears every Sunday in church that God will appear in the form of the neediest of all brethren? No, Jeanne and Marie are not Thelma and Louise. The never actually menace people. When they sit in a restaurant and eat for free, they offer to work instead of paying, telling frankly that they had hunger but have no money. But the owner tells them that he does not have a salvation army bow and he will now call the police. This an experience for the two girls after having made a experiment. In the next station, in the grocery store, they have learned that by humiliating themselves they do not reach the mercy of the other people. They just make another experiment: "Look, we don't have money, but we have that", Jeanne says pointing to the military pistol that they had stolen from a Swiss army officer. And so this "road movie" (more an inner than an outer road movie) goes on. The more merciless their experiences get, the harsher their next experiments turn out - and the less can the two await justness. When a group of men rape Marie, Jeanne splits the skull of one of them with a stone, found nearby in the forest. This was the first experience and leaded to the theft of the Army pistol. That there is an increasing chain of causality in their behavior remains unclear to the police that broadcast the couple's "criminal acts" which the audience believes. It is actually very hard to differentiate up to which degree Marie and Jeanne are culprits or victims. One of the last scenes, where the two stay overnight in a stable, Marie says that she is afraid of her feelings, she would feel very happy and very depressed at once. Jeanne answers that she is "flipping out". One is strongly remembered by some of the last scenes in R.W. Fassbinder's "Despair", which had just appeared one year before (1978). The experience of empty time in empty space leads to a trip into the light. Exactly parallel is also the end-scene, when Marie and Jeanne are arrested - compare the arresting of Hermann Hermann in "Despair".

We do not hear much about Swiss cinema but Alain Tanner (La Salamandre, Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the year 2000) was once the brightest light in the New Swiss Cinema, a movement that owed its allegiance to Brecht, Bresson, and the French New Wave. Considered one of the best of his later works, Messidor is an original, unpredictable, and disturbing film about two alienated young women in search of freedom from society's rules. The film, in its poetic sweep, is reminiscent of Terence Malick's Badlands and could have been the prototype for Thelma and Louise. In Messidor, two girls, Jeanne (Clementine Amouroux), a history student from Geneva, and Marie (Catherine Retor), a store clerk from Moudon in France, go on the road together with very little money and no specific destination. Without context or structure to their lives, they invent a game of trying to see who can survive the longest without money and the result is self-destructive. The girls come from very different backgrounds but share a feeling of alienation. They meet while hitchhiking. Jeanne says she is trying to escape from the noise of the city while Marie is returning home after visiting her father in Lausanne. We learn nothing about their lives before they meet; parents, friends, or school are barely mentioned. When Marie invites Jeanne to go on a ten-mile walk to her home, they decide to sleep in the woods, and the next morning embark on a hitchhiking odyssey through the Swiss countryside. Through repetition of car rides with their meaningless conversations contrasted with the enchanting Swiss village and alpine scenery, the film conveys the impression that we are all in a dreamlike state of "walking going nowhere" on a landscape that has surface beauty but no real substance.Their adventure turns grim when Marie smashes a rock into the side of the head of an assailant to thwart an attempted rape. To protect themselves in the future, they steal a gun from the glove compartment of a Swiss Army officer. When Marie asks, "Where are we headed"? Jeanne replies, "The usual: straight-ahead." To no apparent end they go straight ahead, engaging in haphazard, unmotivated acts that defy society. They have sex together, sleep in barns, steal food, panhandle, and threaten people with their gun. Soon, their description is broadcast on a popular TV program. When they realize that the police are pursuing them, their quest takes on an air of quiet desperation.Messidor is a haunting, personal film that authentically captures a mood of ennui. What was the girls life really about? Their conversation offers few insights and it is not clear whether or not Tanner regards his protagonists with scorn or is simply saying that if you want to live outside of the norms of society, you must understand the limits of freedom. When asked what their game is, Jeanne declares, "It is moving through empty spaces". "All people look alike", she says, "as if they didn't really exist". When the girls arrive in a typical Swiss village they sit in a park and look at people passing. Marie asks, "What do these people do? Where are they going? We'll never know", she says. "That's what's so maddening. We'll never know". What led these two intelligent young women to undertake a self-destructive odyssey? Since they hardly talk about their lives, their thoughts or their feelings, we'll never know. That's what is so maddening. We'll never know.

Messidor is not only the original Thelma and Louise, in my opinion, it is far more realistic and believable in its plotting and action. I thoroughly enjoyed the film from start to finish and would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Thelma and Louise. However, the film also shows more of the realistic but negative side of the life of fugitives... though the cinematography of Messidor is fantastic, with panoramic views of the Swiss countryside, some of the longer visual sequences may seem extraneous to those who might be anticipating non-stop action. Yet the game of adventure that the girls play lacks the aftertaste of Hollywood artifice, seeming truly spontaneous, natural, and creating a more lasting impact with the resulting consequences. Moreover, the film's dialogue and characterization are strong. Having seen Messidor, I can now understand why this film is considered a classic.

A film much nearer to european viewer than Thelma&Louise. The story of the two students is easier to believe and the end of the film is also much real.