Le coup du berger

Jacques Rivette's 1956 short is often cited as the first film of the French New Wave. Virginie Vitry is cheating on her husband (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) with Jean-Claude Brialy. He gives her a mink coat raising the (really obvious) problem ... what can she tell Brialy about her sudden mink coat? They hatch a plan that backfires tres ironically. Co-scripted by Claude Chabrol, it feels much more like his future work than Rivette's.

Both amusing and playful infidelity story told like a chess game -- Claire thinks she's about to checkmate her husband into deceiving him about the origins of the coat she's got from her lover, but then her sister is about to make a winning move in the last minutes.

heart eyes emoji all over!!

The checkmate move is signalled a little too early and a little too obviously to really be totally successful, but still fun, and one wonders whether the cast assembled here had any inkling that the ripple that began here would soon turn into a wave.

Star Rating: ★★★★

charming little film

enjoyable little exercise, constructing the relationship as a game of chess. okay, that's a stupid metaphor, but this is good. the interesting thing about all this is how similar the new wave directors were when they started, and how different they are now.