It was a big hit when it came out, and very well recieved critically as well. Truffaut said that Adjani was “James Dean come back as a girl.”
He treated her like the goddess that she is — even though he failed to nail her.
An exquisite film, one of Truffaut’s very best.
You know, I wasn’t too big on it. I don’t know why. I did a week marathon of Truffaut movies, so maybe watching it next to films like Day For Night made it stand out less for me. Certainly is a very well put together period piece though.
I have an anecdote about the one time I saw this film, in its initial release in the U.S. It had stopped playing in the regular Manhattan art houses, so I had to track it down at a movie theater near Coney Island in Brooklyn, not your usual auteur venue.
There were a couple of older women sitting behind my party, who insisted on chatting about the characters throughout the film. Two gems that I overheard:
As Adele followed her obsession with her lieutenant all over the world, there’s a hint that she might fall for a more rational love, the bearded Saskatchewan man who sells her reams of paper so she can write home to her father, Victor Hugo, for money. The film seems to be rooting for Adele to hook up with this bookseller, but the ladies behind me summed it up before i realized that it was not to be. “He’s a nice guy, but he needs a shave,” one of them said.
Then, after about 90 minutes of watching Adele follow her folly around the globe, going mad in the process, the other woman finally realized: “She’s CRAZY.”
I acquired a new understanding of your “average” audience member from that screening in the remote corridors of Brooklyn.
Adele is a “sister under the skin” to Catherine in “Jules and Jim.” An uncompromising rebel.
I quite like this film as well. It is proof that Adjani could really captivate an audience with her talent. She’s also beautiful, so it works well, especially with the skill and warmth of Truffaut. I say warmth, because even though this film definitely has its cold moments, you still feel like Truffaut cared very much about it and put a lot of heart into it.
Truffaut’s greatest achievement. Isabelle Adjani is phenomenal. Unfortunately, she only made one film with Truffaut. There are two
versions— in French and in English.
I don’t think he could’ve cast a more fitting actress — always, there was something about Adjani’s face that struck me as very vulnerable, that almost created a sense that she could be easily victimized.
This is a great film, possibly Truffaut’s best of the 70s. It’s held up very well.
I don’t see Adele as simply a victim — she’s more complex than that. She orchestrates this really impossible romantic relationship and she feeds herself to it — it’s really the artistic life’s work that she puts up there with her father’s. The unseen presence of the father (Victor Hugo) is very central to the film. Her vengeance for being in his famous shadow is to make herself the most extreme kind of shadow she can — a fanatic for love, a submissive martyr, an insane person.
And that’s exactly why she’s a victim — she isn’t a victim of the Lieutenant, but herself, her own desires to live up to something. Sorry for not clarifying!
One of the best movies ever. I can’t remember more touching film than this. It’s so emotional and so complicated at the same time that it even hurts.
great film
I just re-watched it and its as good as I remember. Its crazy how young Adjani is in it.
Mayukh
Does anyone else find this movie extremely underrated? I really do wish it was on The Auteurs. Isabelle Adjani is mesmerizing.