211 Simone Barbès or Virtue

[Finch]

Working as an usherette at a porn cinema, Simone (Ingrid Bourgoin) squabbles with her colleague as they welcome their peculiar clientele. After her shift, she waits for her girlfriend at a lesbian nightclub full of eccentric characters, before sharing a slow drive home with a stranger. Produced by Paul Vecchiali’s Diagonale (Rosa la rose, fille publique), Marie-Claude Treilhou’s mercurial triptych is rich in style, funny detail, and heady atmosphere. Queer for the marginal stories it tells and for its offbeat, aesthetic blend of irony and sincerity, Simone Barbès or Virtue is a gem of the post-post-New Wave, capturing both the thrilling possibilities and compelling absurdities of nighttime Paris.

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

4K scan and restoration by Cosmodigital
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
Lourdes l’hiver - short film by Marie-Claude Treilhou (1981, 9 mins)
New visual essay by film critic Lillian Crawford (2026)
New interview with film scholar Elena Gorfinkel (2026)
Archival French TV interview with star Ingrid Bourgoin (1980)
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Booklet featuring writing by Erika Balsom and archival writing
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[jlnight]

Title is familiar - it turned up a couple of times on Channel 4, in 1983 and 1988, in the Eleventh Hour slot. That type of programming is long gone.

[domino harvey]

Haven’t seen this one but also vaguely familiar with it. Seeing Vecchiali’s name means it will prob stay that way for me, unless he somehow has much better tastes in production than filmmaking

[reaky]

Title is familiar - it turned up a couple of times on Channel 4, in 1983 and 1988, in the Eleventh Hour slot. That type of programming is long gone.

Sounds like textbook Red Triangle fare.

[Glowingwabbit]

Haven’t seen this one but also vaguely familiar with it. Seeing Vecchiali’s name means it will prob stay that way for me, unless he somehow has much better tastes in production than filmmaking

Great film. I love seeing more Diagonale released. Probably not your cup pf tea if you aren't into Vecchiali tho.

[jlnight]

Sounds like textbook Red Triangle fare.

The 1983 screening was part of a 'Women in Film' season which included the shorts Macho, Smiling Madame Beaudet and Nomine Domine, and the features Two Stage Sisters, The Bigamist, Shirin's Wedding and Doll's Eye. Two Stage Sisters was directed by a man, the rest by women.

The film with a similar theme to this one seems to be Bette Gordon's Variety (1983), which itself was screened on Channel 4 in 1985 and also 1988 (about a month after the repeat Simone Barbes broadcast).

[pianocrash]

I’ve mentioned elsewhere on forum about my love for this one, and I’m glad it’s finally getting a physical release apart from an OOP US dvd (not to mention the non-subbed French edition that is a little too difficult to find). The mythology of the production’s group effort will always stick in my mind, as will Jean-Yves Escoffier’s luminous photography & choices on display on this, his first full length feature work (Excess Baggage is worth a revisit for just that, even if I can’t remember what that one was even really about). It would be a betrayal to write this off if you haven’t enjoyed other Vecchiali pictures (at the very least if you enjoy One Long Night type pictures, like After Hours or even The Warriors), but also? I get that he’s not for everybody

[spectre]

Super exciting news – this is one of my favourite films (I liked it so much that I bought the French DVD-in-a-book without English subtitles in order to run it on my Oppo player, with varying success)!

For those who haven't seen it, Simone Barbès is kind of like a three-part chamber play in wildly different settings, each stage of which explores gender relations and sexuality in a different way through the same character's viewpoint. I love Variety too, but I wouldn't say they're overly similar films; while they share the same premise (women working in an adult cinema) and time period, this one is much more light and playful – more theatre than dreamscape.

I've never seen anything by Vecchiali so can't comment on the comparison, but I don't think this is a world away from, say, Rivette's Va savoir.