La rosière de pessac

The French director Jean Eustache was born in Pessac, near Bordeaux, and went back there in 1968 to make a film about the annual election of the most virtuous girl in Pessac, the Rosière from the title. Without comment, the preparations are followed, from the meetings and nominations to the speeches. Eustache does not make laughing stock out of the participants in the ceremony, but he does have a keen eye for the absurdist elements of this old-fashioned ritual, in which everybody plays his role by the book. The elected girl, for example, is supposed to keep quiet. Above all, the election binds together a group of people who are on the threshold of a new era. For instance, in his speech, the liberal priest refers to the revolution in Paris of May 1968, which is taking place right at that moment. Thus, the traditions and the imminent anti-authority movement have been captured in one film. In 1979, Eustache returned to Pessac and found a completely changed community. Eustache said about his diptych: ‘I wanted to film the passing of time, the evolution and transformation of society within the confines of a certain place and a certain tradition.’