By Lee Pfeiffer
Severin Films is noted for releasing deluxe DVD editions of cult European horror and sexploitation films such as the Emmanuelle movies and the recently-reviewed Sinful Dwarf. Thus, when I received a screener from Severin of their newly released French import The Hairdresser's Husband (Le mari de la coiffeuse), my natural inclination was to assume that this, too, had a tinge of the grotesque to it. However, the first clues that this would not be the kind of film generally appreciated by overweight, middle-aged men who live in their mother's basements was the fact that the DVD sleeve boasted a rave from Roger Ebert and the notation that the 1990 film was nominated for 7 Cesar Awards (the French equivilent of the Oscars) - a legacy that somehow escaped The Sinful Dwarf. I watched the film without even reading the synopsis and was quickly hypnotized by this strange, but fascinating love story. There is nary a murder or ill-tempered dwarf in sight, but you are never certain until the last frame what direction the story might move in. The film centers on Antoine (Jean Rochefort), a rather mundane middle-aged man who lives a relatively non-descript life. He reflects back on his childhood and his first love: the local hairdresser who would cut his hair. She was a plump, buxom woman who served as little Antoine's first sexual obsession. He became obsessed with her breasts and would use every available opportunity to get a haircut- much to his mother's bewilderment. It was from these early encounters that Antoine decided he had but one goal in life: to marry a hairdresser. The story shifts to the recent past, as Antoine recalls how he managed to fulfill his dream by marrying a beautiful, much younger woman who ran a hair salon. Â