Le beau Serge / Piękny Serge
1958, 98 min.

special screening following digital restoration

Awards and selections: Locarno Film Festival 1958 – Best Director Award; Prix Jean Vigo 1959
Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Lafont, Michèle Méritz
Country: France

[IN-PERSON SCREENING]

Old friendships can leave a bitter aftertaste

After almost ten years away, François returns to his home village, where he meets his old friend Serge. Once the life and soul of the party, Serge is now a embittered man consumed by alcohol. François’s attempt to save his friend becomes a painful confrontation with the past and the harsh reality of provincial France. “Handsome Serge”, Claude Chabrol’s feature debut, is one of the films that heralded the French New Wave. Set against a stark, melancholic backdrop, the film combines realism with a bitter observation of human weaknesses, unfulfilled dreams and social constraints.

In the media:

«It is important to remember that “Handsome Serge” is a tribute to cinema by an amateur cinephile, the result of a genuine joy in filmmaking, and at the same time a prelude to one of the most important phenomena in the history of world cinema: the French New Wave. This, beyond the film’s content, is where its value also lies.»
— Anna Felskowska, Cinerama, read the full review

Claude Chabrol

French director, screenwriter and film critic, and one of the most important figures of the French New Wave. He worked with Cahiers du Cinéma before making Handsome Serge in 1958, his feature debut and one of the movement’s earliest films. He received the Best Director Award at Locarno and the Prix Jean Vigo for the film. In the decades that followed, he became known above all as a master of subversive thrillers and a merciless observer of the French bourgeoisie.

Tags: French New Wave, provincial France, friendship, alcoholism, crisis

The “Critics’ Classics” section is organised in cooperation with the French Institute in Warsaw.