A Man and a Woman (1966)

Waste of time

Simply A Masterpiece

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Claude Lelouch's Palme d'or winner (an honour shared with Pietro Germi's THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS 1966), which is also a two-times Oscar winner (BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM and BEST ORIGINAL SCRIPT, with two other notable nominations, BEST DIRECTOR and BEST LEADING ACTRESS).Opening with a mother telling Little Red Riding Hood to her kiddie daughter, and a father teaches his baby boy driving on the street, the movie's diegesis is a plain romance between a man and a woman, Jean-Louis Duroc (Trintignant) and Anne Gauthier (Aimée). They meet at the boarding school of their children in Deauville, although both claiming to be married, we don't see their respective spouses with them. Anne carpools with Jean-Louis to head back to Paris, en route, Anne recollects fond memory of her husband Pierre (Barouh), a movie stuntman whom later she reveal has died in an accident. During their next scheduled trip to Deauville, Jean-Louis confesses that he is a racer who survived a tragic accident which unfortunately prompted his wife's suicide. So there is nothing to hold back their mutual attraction, a widow and a widower, with two young kids, a boy and a girl, it is a perfect second chance.A MAN AND A WOMAN is an exemplar of the atmosphere cinema, unbelievably captures the zeitgeist of its time, Lelouch's incalculable interchange of its palette, between colour, black-and- white and sepia tone, is a godsend to perk up the intimacy of the close-ups and the mundanity of an unforced narrative arc. Francis Lai's iconic soundtrack lead by its enduring titular theme song (performed by Barouh and Nicole Croisille) is trance-inducing and incredibly attune to the pulse of the romance and its aftermath. The picture is also a fruit of a new generation of Gallo-trendsetters (Lelouch and Lai, are both under 30, and the crew is mostly youngsters), structurally unbridled, visually discursive, sonically enchanting, top-lined with a pair of uncontrived charmers, Trintignant and Aimée, it is a film of nigh perfection, which seems rather a windfall gauged through Lelouch's entire career path.Incisively, Lelouch's dichotomous rumination on the difference of gender politics hits the bull's eye, with regard to memories, woman is more prone to linger in the limbo of sentiments whereas man is inevitably more clinging to his carnal impulse (Jean-Louis already has a lover before he meets Anne). A bona-fide heart-stealer is the soul-touching shots of an old man with his dog on the beach side, that is how nostalgia is wondrously evoked in a movie, such a knockout picture, the more you think about it, the more affection will germinate afterwards.

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their children's' boarding school. Slowly they reveal themselves to each other, finding that each is a widow/widower. Each is slow to reveal anything personal so that each revelation is hidden by a misperception.Bosley Crowther wrote, "For a first-rate demonstration of the artfulness of a cameraman and the skill at putting together handsome pictures and a strongly sentimental musical score, there is nothing around any better than Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman." I know nothing about Calude Lelouch, and had probably never heard the name before seeing this film. What it reminds me of, though, is the style of Richard Linklater, specifically his Paris films. The story driven by the dialogue of two people just getting to know each other. I cannot help but think this film was a big inspiration on Linklater's writing.

This film taps in to love the way we wish it could happen.Girl meets guy by happenstance, the chemistry's incredible, he thinks about her and she thinks about him -- and he doesn't drop her at the first sign of a problem.Director Claude LeLouche works like an impressionist painter here, creating a highly romantic canvas that is backed by one of the best soundtracks ever. Flashing back and jumping forward, and switching between black and white and color, LeLouche creates characters of some depth who are neither entirely realistic nor totally make-believe.I was intrigued to read on Wikipedia that one of LeLouche's films had been decried as misogynistic. I kind of understood upon observing Jean-Louis tell Anne: "It bores women to talk of technicalities. But I can tell you some trivia." The exotic-looking Anouk Aimee is winsome as Anne but needed a better hair stylist. (Was anyone else distracted by her constant efforts to keep her hair out of her eyes? She's even doing it in the movie poster!) The daring telegram she sends to Jean-Louis, after only two platonic outings together, made me gasp, but I suppose that was part of the fantasy here.Jean-Louis Trintingnant does well as the male lead, and it was intriguing to have that bit with his mistress and the racing magazine thrown in, showing that he could be a player just like untrustworthy men in real life.The back stories for this film are also interesting. According to Wikipedia, Aimee went on to marry Pierre Barouh, who plays her tragic husband in the film (they divorced three years later), and the actress, possibly a descendant of Alfred Dreyfus of the "Dreyfus Affair," converted to Judaism later in life. (Barouh had been a "hidden child" during the Naziism of his youth.) Wikipedia also says it was Trintignant who'd suggested Aimee for the role of Anne. Tragically, his own daughter was murdered in her 40s in a case that was controversial throughout France.

The film tells a love story in an interesting way, with several good ideas (retrospectives, ...) but also several very bad ideas (the camera turning round and round the couple in love, the dog running hence and forth). I am not sure watching just for the few good ideas makes it worthwhile. Maybe so, the director transforms the poor script into a much better film than Hollywood would.However, most importantly, the plot is silly. There is nothing unexpected, nothing out of the ordinary, plainly silly. It happens every day that two people fall in love with each other, travel together, go a long way to see each other, can't really go on with each other... What is the point of such a story?