LE VENTRE DE L'AMÉRIQUE / UNE AVENTURE DE BILLY LE KID

The filmmaker sets out to visit deepest Middle America: the city of Des Moines, Iowa. Like an explorer in a faraway exotic land, he conscientiously describes the social mores, buildings and surprising things he encounters. Although playful, this is much more serious ethnography than it seems. A warning against the inherent risks of the bankrupt hegemony of United States lifestyle.

John-Pierre Léaud is Billy the Kid. From the opening credits, the cultural oddity of this “New Wave Western” is humorously obvious. Jean-Pierre Léaud does Léaud things in a world where girls, a bit like the bison, are on the verge of extinction. To the throbbing beat of A Girl is a Gun, the battle of the sexes rages throughout this strange odyssey. Moullet’s third feature is certainly fiction, but it is also a testament to an entire era.