If you had to guess the plot to a 1962 French New Wave film, what would it be? Right: a love triangle. In Adieu Philippine, the trio in question is made up of two best friends and a TV assistant looking for a good time before shipping off for mandatory military service in the hugely unpopular Algerian War. In 2022, when the film showed at MOMA as part of the series “Forgotten Filmmakers of the French New Wave,” New Yorker film critic Richard Brody suggested that Jacques Rozier’s gem was forgotten because it was ahead of its time: “It’s a film that belongs to its historical moment but also reflects it from the outside like a magnifying mirror.” It employs the signature techniques of the era – blending documentary and fiction, utilizing first-time actors and improvised dialogue – but feels prescient at the same time. “With his reliance on spontaneity and improvisation, Rozier created something like the primordial version of mumblecore,” Brody wrote. Now that’s a comparison you don’t often hear when you think of the French New Wave. – Lina Fisher
