Metrograph

Desired by men, pampered by her indulgent pimp (Jean Sorel), and beloved by her fellow working girls plying their trade in the streets around Les Halles, Rosa “La Rose” (Marianne Basler) has little to complain of in life until tragedy strikes on the eve of her twentieth birthday—this in the form of a love-at-first-sight encounter with Julien (Pierre Cosso), a young worker whose burning ardor will shake her out of the comfortable place she’s found in the ecosystem of “the milieu.” A sparkling new restoration of Vecchiali’s exquisitely controlled melodrama, entirely of its moment in its depiction of 1980s Paris while also infused with the lyrical, freewheeling spirit of the ’30s French cinema that its director was a passionate advocate for.

Restoration courtesy of Radiance Films and the American Genre Film Archive.

Distributor: AGFA