LOVE ON THE RUN Movie Review

L'Amour en Fuite

François Truffaut's fifth and final film about his cinematic alter ego, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), finds Antoine divorced from Christine (Claude Jade) and coping with the death of his mother. In Love of the Run, Antoine, now in his thirties, is looking back over his life and loves, which necessarily entails the inclusion of film clips from the previous films in the cycle—The 400 Blows, the Antoine and Colette sequence from Love at Twenty, Stolen Kisses, and Bed and Board. This is both a Reader's Digest—style “condensed Antoine Doinel” as well as a sobering and melancholy moment of reflection for Antoine, who never stopped moving forward and taking risks as he searched continuously for the love he was denied in childhood. Antoine's tragic legacy was his deep-seated belief that he was not deserving of love, but his nobler instincts always propelled him toward it; at the end of Love on the Run—which might have been called “The Man Who Loved Women” had Truffaut not already used the title—Antoine seems to understand this, but whether or not that is sufficient to bring him happiness is a question that Truffaut and his great star Léaud left us to decide for ourselves. It's a strangely sad but appropriately unfinished final chapter in Truffaut's remarkably personal and pioneering series about the emotional adventure that we call youth. Marie-France Pisier, who made her debut opposite Léaud in Antoine and Colette, is credited as one of four coauthors of Love on the Run's screenplay. (Composer Georges Delerue's wistful theme song, sung by Alain Souchon on the soundtrack, was released on a French CD of music from Truffaut's films.)

NEXT STOP … The 400 Blows, Love at Twenty, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board

1978 95m/C FR Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marie-France Pisier, Claude Jade; D: Francois Truffaut; C: Nestor Almendros; M: Georges Delerue. Cesar Awards '80: Best Score. VHS HMV, WAR