Born in 1947, Juliet Berto emerged as a significant figure in French cinema, known for her collaborations with Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette. In Weekend (1967), she delivers a compelling performance that captures the chaotic essence of the era, while her role in Sex Shop (1972) explores the provocative themes of sexuality. Berto's work in Mr. Klein (1976) further solidifies her status as a versatile actress in the world of cult and experimental film, reflecting the innovative spirit of the 1970s French New Wave.
Weekend
Roland and Corinne are a bourgeois couple. Each has a secret lover and conspires to murder the other. They drive out to Corinne's parents' home in the country to secure her inheritance from her dying father, resolving to resort to murder if necessary. The trip becomes a chaotically picaresque journey through a French countryside populated by bizarre characters and punctuated by violent car accidents. After their own Facel-Vega is destroyed in a collision, they wander through a series of vignettes involving class struggle and figures from literature and history, such as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and Emily Brontë. When Corinne and Roland eventually arrive at her parents' place, they discover that her father has died and her mother refuses to give them a share of the spoils. They kill her and hit the road again, only to fall into the hands of a group of hippie revolutionaries (calling themselves the Seine and Oise Liberation Front) that support themselves through theft and cannibalism. Killed during an escape attempt, Roland is chopped up and cooked.