Der Tag und die Nacht

Together with "The Assassination of Trotzki" and "Teheran 43" the worst and most boring Delon movie I've watched (and I've watched more than 40 of his films). How stars like Lauren Bacall and Alain Delon could agree to participate in this film desaster is just beyond me. I noticed that this one was not done bei Adel Productions (Alain Delon Productions) like most of his other movies. One star for the air balloon scenes.

This movie was the subject of countless jokes ,as was his director ,philosoph Bernard Henry Levy ("BHV").THe movie got unanimous thumbs down and artistically and commercially it was such a failure that BHV did not try again...probably wisely.

BHV had nevertheless a dream of a cast:his lady friend,Arielle Dombasle ,Alain Delon,Lauren Bacall and Bunuelian Francisco Rabal.The screenplay ,vaguely Hemingwayesque ,tells the story of a writer, a has been who lives in Mexico .Not exactly the "now that's what I call a screenplay" thing ,and the actors can't help it.

Mexico seaside is lovely.

Once described as a man 'whose intelligence is destroyed by his ego' Bernard-Henri Levy is renowned for his innate ability to ruffle feathers and rattle cages.

Activist, intellectual, socialite, multi-millionaire and er.....philosopher, he has also had the dubious distintion of being a member of that select group to have received direct hits from infamous pie-thrower Noel Godin.

Orson Welles once famously said that 'with a good editor and lighting cameraman, anyone can make a film.' Anyone it would seem except Bernard-Henri Levy.

Whichever way you look at it this film is pretty awful. Dull, pretentious, devoid of momentum and unintentionally funny.

The macho posturing here of Alain Delon in his early sixties and Francisco Rabal in his seventies is exceedingly absurd. Lauren Bacall manages to retain some semblance of dignity. The rest of the cast is uniformly mediocre including an actor whose surname, rather aptly, is Zero. There are a couple of heavenly bodies on display but the actresses to whom they belong are far less interesting when fully clothed.

The one redeeming feature is the cinematography of veteran Willy Kurant.

Does this opus deserve its label as 'worst'? There are many films out there which are just as bad if not worse, some of which have achieved cult status.

One should be grateful for small mercies in that Monsieur Levy was never again let loose on a film set.

The infinitely little possess a pride infinitely great and for this he fully deserves to be pelted with pies.

in this movie. It's not the best French/Delon's movie but not the worst one as previous "writer" commented. Be over 30-40 and have some brains… that guy (who wrote that he didn't get it) was definitely missing first or second. You don't have to be rocket scientist to understand this movie, just a bit thinking and "sense and sensibility" feelings. O, and you have to love Delon. He is great and this movie. Arielle Dombasle is great too and I think even too sexy for this movie. The movie is about aging,self-sacrifice,about loosing passion and inspiration and of course love that brings all that back. As I said it's far from best French movies but I wouldn't give it "2". I think 5-6 is appropriate. It's just not always happens that a movie with great/big actors becomes a masterpiece. And nobody knows why...Nor Delon, nor Bacall could save this one, but I wouldn't blame this particular director.