Une sale histoire

The bifurcated structure of this unique film layers “magisterial experiments in staged/performed actuality” (Adrian Martin), with collaboration from Eustache’s friend Jean Nöel-Picq and actors Michael Lonsdale, Laurie Zimmer and Françoise Lebrun. With a title that tellingly translates as “A Dirty Story”, Eustache uses the doubling of a monologue – involving the discovery of a peephole between the men’s and women’s toilets in a Paris restaurant – to deconstruct the nature of oral storytelling, confession, performance and audience perception.