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Das Ewig-Weibliche that zieht uns hinan, as Pepé Le Pew would have it. The Lothario (Charles Denner) has a triste demeanor and raspy vocals, "a wolf with a worried look." His funeral is for female mourners only (cf. Korda's The Private Life of Don Juan), the vantage point from the grave suits his idée fixe of high-heeled gams. Remembrances for his memoirs, an encyclopedia of conquests, "a testimony." The bourgeois thrill-seeker (Nelly Borgeaud) is inflamed by public romping and goes to jail after shooting her husband, the lingerie saleswoman (Geneviève Fontanel) likes men on the young side, the estranged flame (Leslie Caron) deserves a book of her own. An imperiously alluring mother may or may not be his Rosebud, the one who got away is a disembodied voice on the other end of a wake-up call service. Through it all, an emerging query: "Was it truly impossible to feel pleasure without hurting somebody?" The Bride Wore Black reversed, François Truffaut on the charm of obsession. His alter ego crashes his car to dig information on a comely driver, goes to the movies only to chase an usherette, puts a plastic doll in the crib to snare a babysitter. The dream is a fantasy island derived from Blier's Femmes Fatales, the nightmare is a mannequin frozen for the female gaze. The fogies reviewing the manuscript are clearly movie critics: "Is he sick, a maniac, a pathological case, or a disillusioned romantic?" "Just a man," answers the intrigued publisher (Brigitte Fossey). The arrow-shaped hair ornament is from Lang's Man Hunt, the death by voluptuous nurse is from Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait. A poetic oblivion, "un bonheur impossible." The compliment to Fellini's Casanova is returned in La Città delle Donne. With Nathalie Baye, Valérie Bonnier, Jean Dasté, and Roger Leenhardt.
--- Fernando F. Croce |