Life Size (1973)
Director: Luis García Berlanga
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Piccoli, as a chic dentist, forsakes his 'liberated' but arid marriage for a new love. His job slides as he devotes himself entirely to her; they marry, but soon their bliss becomes contaminated and he tries to kill her. What makes Life Size a suitably bizarre project for Piccoli in his running battle with the bourgeoisie is that the object of his affections is a lifelike doll, complete with mucous membranes. Best are the ways in which the film tackles the problems of fantasy in an apparently permissive society, and how the doll takes on a symbolic importance beyond Piccoli's conceptions. Slightly less successful: the running gag of women as living dolls (apart from one extraordinary sequence where Piccoli's wife behaves like one in order to attract him back), and the intimations of social apocalypse at the end.Author: CPe
Cast & crew
Director: Luis García Berlanga
Producer: Alfredo Matas, Christian Ferry
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Valentine Tessier, Rada Rassimov, Claudia Bianchi, Queta Claver, Manolo Alexandre full cast
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now