August 09 2025, 19:52
The Girl on a Motorcycle
Director: Jack Cardiff
Release year: 1968
I’m pleased with myself for seeing one of these #ArthouseSummer films in the cinema. The BFI South Bank is an amazing space, and it’s been several years since I’ve visited, so I’d forgotten how they have red curtains in NFT2 and how uncomfortable the seats are. Also, the weirdos.
A guy made a beeline for me in the foyer, an older fella getting far to close to me, and I had to do an unexpected pause and side step to get away from him. He then sat next to me in the film. My seat was booked hours earlier, but I can’t believe it was a coincidence, he must have crashed someone else’s seat. He struck up a conversation.
‘What brings you here to watch this film?’
I was confused. His emphasis was provocative. ‘Well, I’m writing some blog posts on arthouse films...’
‘You think this is an arthouse film?’
‘I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know. I hope so.’
‘What are you writing?’
He didn’t seem to understand what a blog was, or pretended not to. ‘Posts on the internet.’
‘Well, whatever, you follow your dreams.’ The derision was floating around him in a cloud. ‘But it’s not good. It’s certainly not arthouse. It’s a piece of crap.’
‘I hope that’s not true. Look, please don’t spoil...’
‘And have you met her?’ He pointed towards the front of the cinema.
‘I don’t know who you’re pointing at...’ The penny dropped. ‘Marianne Faithfull? No, of course not. Have you?’ I knew the answer before I’d finished asking.
‘Yes. She was awful.’
At this point I exploded. ‘Are you going to spoil this for me? I’ve asked you not to. Are you going to be trouble? Because if you are I’ll have to move.’ I could sense the people around me listening to all this, but I was furious.
‘Okay, if you don’t want to talk, I’ll leave you alone.’ He pulled a large black backpack off the floor, heaved it onto the empty seat to his left, pulled out a large bag of sweets and started rustling them loudly.
Reader, I left the cinema. At the entrance, I spoke to the usher and he said just to sit anywhere once the film started, so I zipped down the front when he closed the rear doors and got an aisle seat, which was perfect. (I should say something about the film!)
Newly married Rebecca is given a motorbike as a wedding present by her sadistic lover, Daniel. Her husband, Raymond, allows her to keep it, and one morning she secretly sets off from their French home across the German border to visit Daniel in Heidelberg. We discover her story as part of her journey.
If I’d seen the film at home, I don’t think I’d have finished it, but there was something about it on the big screen that made it sing. It’s cheesy, the dialogue is often clunky, and Marianne Faithful gives an over-the-top performance, but damn it if I didn’t have a really good time. They showed the Alex Cox Moviedrome introduction to the film, and he’s pretty dismissive and snide about it, but I think he misses the swings director Jack Cardiff is going for.
It might be overgenerous to say the film is deliberately funny, but it’s definitely knowing in some of its humour, and it wrestles with ideas of marriage, monogamy, marrying young, what it means to be free, free love, types of masculinity, and indeed femininity... and it’s playful.
It’s not erotic, which was part of its marketing/mystique, because whenever there is sex, the screen pulsates with neon pinks and greens. It’s an experimental film, for sure, and the narrative unfolds in flashbacks and dream sequences to clever effect. It’s incredible, based on its current reputation as a bad cult film, that A Girl on a Motorcycle was the sixth most popular film on general release in 1968. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s far more ambitious than most things that get made today.
All films in 2025’s #ArthouseSummer...
Previous: Irma Vep