THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN Movie Review
L'Homme Qui Aimait les Femmes
A charming, intelligent, and thoroughly obsessed bachelor writes his memoirs and remembers the many women he's loved, which is pretty much the same number of women he's known. François Truffaut's movie is heartfelt, risky, sophisticated, and—for the most part—joyous, though after the hero's accidental death some larger questions about the meaning and purpose of desire are raised. Charles Denner's Bertrand radiates just the right combination of frantic intensity, religious adoration, and total confusion as he struggles and flails about, desperately trying to hold on to the memory of all the couplings of his life. He never really looks like he's having fun, and I think that's intentional on the director's part; his drive is so absolute and all-encompassing that it can never be satisfied or stilled—perhaps not even by death, Truffaut suggests. The last moments of the film are a privileged dream sequence for both Bertrand and Truffaut, as a vision of tout les femmes features virtually every woman in the world in a skirt and high heels, perfect legs crossed, smiling, ready to be adored, fantasized over, fetishized, obsessed on. Dismissing this as a male fantasy isn't exactly fair; it proudly proclaims that that's exactly what it is, and that despite the inherent sadness and disappointment that accompanies Bertrand's compulsion, he knew exactly what he wanted, and died with his passion still proudly burning. By all accounts, so did the film's gifted creator. (In Blake Edwards's dour 1983 remake of the same title, Burt Reynolds isn't fun or passionate; that version's just a slightly titillating sensitivity training session, with only the saving grace of Kim Basinger to redeem it.)
NEXT STOP … The Story of Adele H., The Soft Skin, City of Women
1977 119m/C FR Charles Denner, Brigitte Fossey, Leslie Caron, Nelly Borgeaud, Genevieve Fontanel, Nathalie Baye, Sabine Glaser; D: Francois Truffaut; W: Francois Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman, Michel Fermaud; C: Nestor Almendros; M: Maurice Jaubert. VHS, LV, Closed Caption MGM, BTV