in which I am proven wrong about the Eiffel Tower

To the NWFF for the two films in a series they're sponsering from a French director I've been completely unaware of: Luc Moullet. First was Brigitte et Brigitte, about two college girls who dress alike and have similar backstories and identical names. It's a series of vignettes, entirely post-dubbed. There are lots of extraneous construction noises creeping in and occasionally drowning out the dialogue. The article linked above says that Godard said the movie was "revolutionary": I'll bet he did--all the way through I kept thinking of the soundscape of 2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d'Elle, which was made the following year. Loved the kid with the list of 323 American directors in order of quality, with Jerry Lewis at the bottom. Loved Claude Chabrol, looking like Rowen Atkinson, as a nasty uncle who vigorously rocks a Brigitte on his knees just like he did when she was little. And I really did love that soundscape, and the enjoyment I got from scenes of frolicking that weren't accompanied by a pop song on the soundtrack. Despite my claim of a few weeks ago, this film features a lengthy shot of the Eiffel Tower, although it's treated as a gag. It also opens with a shot of the Arc d'Triomphe, for no reason I can figure.
Final shot: tableau; embrace.
Second movie was The Smugglers. An entirely free-form set of absurdist gags. This is the kind of movie that puts me in heaven immediately, from the opening scene of a border guard saying "Some days it's hard to be a border guard," as he frisks a beautiful young woman looking for contraband watches. The Brigitte who was dandled by her uncle in the first movie continues her story here, and in the intervening year she became a knockout. She's got these short, slightly stocky, R.Crumbish legs ("great calves") and stance, despite being petite otherwise. And she's absolutely willing to be ridiculous. I don't know how her legs stay looking so pristine, because the story calls for her to climb around on rocks for pretty much the duration. If I'd done half of her stunts, I'd have been black and blue. Loved her smuggler boyfriend, getting all Jerome Robbins on the big rocks when he steals a pair of shoes from a dead border guard. Loved the way the two girl smugglers avoid the border guard on the island--they just don't go to the island, basically, this island where there is nothing except a border guard. Loved how Brigitte can make not only nature, but another character's internal monologue stop short, just by yelling "Shut Up!" And in both these movies, I love how Moullet expects you to accept whatever reality he gives you. This comedy of borders, with smuggling as an altruistic act, seems as potent now as it must have ever been.
Final shot: two protagonists walk off camera (after an upending of the opening shot).