Party Girl

A weary and desolate Angélique Litzenburger a 60 year old dance-club hostess and former stripper sits nursing yet another drink at the bar and declares to her younger co-workers ‘I was a superstar!’ The trouble is that although she is way past her prime, she is still partying as hard as she did in her youth it’s simply that she no longer has any clients willing to pick up the tab anymore. The only one who is still enamored with her is Michel and even he has stopped coming into the club regularly, so she desperately tracks him down at his house in the small suburban town on the French & German border, and begs him to come back so that she can survive.  He refuses too, but instead he professes his love, and proposes marriage to her.

It’s not the solution to her problems that she wanted but with her options running out fast, she puts on a brave face and accepts.  He is not even put off when he meets her adult children and she has to confess that she actually doesn’t even know who the father is of her youngest one who had been living with foster parents.

Angélique moves out of the Club and into Michel’s home and as the preparations for the wedding get underway all of Michel’s friend happily embrace his new-found love.  She on the
other hand on a trip back to the Bar, confesses to her ex-workmates that despite her racy past, she simply cannot bear the thought of any physical contact with her fiancé and so far had kept him at bay saying that she wants to save herself for their wedding night.

This rather extraordinary hybrid movie not only has ex hostess Angélique Litzenburger playing a fictionalized version of herself, but her children are also played by her real-life children too.  In fact one of them, Samual Theis, is one of the three co-directors of the movie too.  It is even more remarkable for the fact that Litzenburger does not shy away from portraying herself as a self-absorbed reckless good-time girl who never allowed her children to either get close to her or in fact interfere with her persistent partying. Even though Litzenburger knows that she has run out of options we are still not completely shocked when she still inevitably takes the only path that suits her.

Despite her relentless selfishness there is this element of vulnerability that still makes us a tad sympathetic to her predicament. If the story had been an entire piece of fiction it would have still have made compelling, but knowing the reality of the situation, makes it so completely unmissable.

Winner of several awards including Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival this rather wonderful sad tale will linger with you far longer than any of the drinks that Angélique probably still nurses at the Bar.