The Oldest Profession

Thu., Jan. 27, 7 p.m., $8, Ibrahim Theater at International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, thesecretcinema.com.

by Shaun Brady

[ film ]

The 1960s were the heyday of the omnibus film, with regular gatherings of European cinema all-stars pitching in their variations on themes from Edgar Allan Poe ( Spirits of the Dead) to sex (Boccaccio '70) to young love (Love at Twenty). The mostly forgotten, rarely seen 1967 portmanteau The Oldest Profession has another go at sexual relations, this time of the paid variety. The first five segments largely justify the film's neglect, all coy swinging-'60s antics with Benny Hill-caliber comedy. Each piece examines prostitution in a different historical era, traveling from Franco Indovina's Laugh-In prehistory stocked with hippie cavemen through Philippe de Broca's oh-so-French revolution to Claude Autant-Lara's sex-on-wheels modern Paris, stopping to ogle Raquel Welch, Jeanne Moreau and Elsa Martinelli along the way. But suddenly, at the tail end of all these free-love frolics, comes Jean-Luc Godard's Anticipation, ou L'amour en l'an 2000, the director's final collaboration with star Anna Karina and as daring and inventive as the other segments are tossed-off and trite. Created contemporaneously with Weekend, the piece shares that film's alienating effects while revisiting the dehumanizing sci-fi world of Alphaville. Karina plays a prostitute specializing in the verbal rather than the physical, allowing Godard to indulge in his trademark emotionless non sequiturs, enhanced by regular updates on radioactivity levels on the soundtrack. Secret Cinema's Jay Schwartz provides the American release print, dubbed in English but retaining Godard's use of bold monochromes rather than the black-and-white found in European edits that have turned up on YouTube.

Thu., Jan. 27, 7 p.m., $8, Ibrahim Theater at International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, thesecretcinema.com.