Goodbye in the Mirror (1964)

Meandering portrait of a woman and her experiences in Rome. This is generally filed with the avant-garde features of the '60s, which I presume is due to the impressionistic approach to the narrative. (It certainly has nothing to do with any kind of formal experimentation, unless tossing away the tripod was a revolutionary concept in 1964.) Truth be told, I admire what director Storm de Hirsch is presumably doing here -- it could be a precursor to Lost in Translation, a travelogue from the vantage of someone who didn't bother to understand or appreciate what she was seeing. The problem with this approach is it risks (indeed, invites) the creation of a protagonist who could charitably be described as difficult. Which is what happens here -- the lead in this film is a sullen, flighty twit, and her dislikeability weighs down the whole enterprise. I think some manner of feminist message is being transmitted, but it's not getting through, unless the message is that feminism means that women can be just as intolerable as men.

Grade: C