Bed & Board

No #4 in the Antoine series, five films beginning with 400 Blows, Antoine, the dreamer, has got himself a fine young wife, his opposite really, prim and well mannered. Their romantic first year is a series of funny neighbors and comical whimsy. I learned how to die the color of flowers, more interesting than one would think. I learned about hurrying a wife along by throwing her coat and bag down a stairway. I learned that relationships go wrong when one gives in to lust. Hey, I knew that.

Jean-Pierre Leaud has a physical resemblance to Truffaut. These episodic films, the ones in color that I have seen remind one of a HBO mini-series. His autobiographical Doinel is from a broken family. In the 400 blows, a masterpiece really of the New French Cinema in the late 50's, we see the lonely kid grasping for understanding. In subsequent films, we see the young adult Doinel grasp at relationship and career. The next beautiful woman is always around the corner. In Bread and Board, the femme fatale is 70's Japanese Go Go Chick, Hiroko Berghauer. Notice the heavy eye make-up on the women that make them look like zombies.

Ufff I loved the chemistry betweeen Antoine and Christine, simply Charming. The films shows that "modern" marriage of the end of XX century. A woman who still keeping talking to her ex-husband. A husband, that was unfaintful and still kept a good relationship with Christine. However, you can still see, a behaviour of a male chauvinist and a woman "submissive", just that with very open mind view.

Antoine's (Jean-Pierre Léaud) life, after the misadventures experienced in "The 400 Blows", "Antoine and Colette" and "Stolen Kisses", begins to flow serenely, full of love for Christine (Claude Jade) and his newborn son, despite his fiery temperament that always leads him to look for something different. One day, at work, he meets a young Japanese woman, Kyoko (Hiroko Berghauer), who once again challenges his only certainties.

François Truffaut tells a story of ordinary betrayal, in which a perfect marriage is challenged by the narcissistic attitude of a man, too sure of the love of his wife, a sacrificial victim on the altar of his own selfishness. Claude Jade's interpretation, who embodies the loving wife, is praiseworthy, but Jean-Pierre Léaud also outlines well the evolution of his character, now in its fourth chapter. A beautiful and enjoyable film, even if the theme of betrayal, and in particular of forgiveness, in my opinion is treated with excessive superficiality.

This is the fourth and penultimate film in Truffaut's semi-autobiographical series about the life of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud). The movie depicts Doinel in the early years of marriage to his childhood sweetheart Christine Darbon (Claude Jade). The picture begins showing Antoine trying to scrape a living selling dyed flowers in the busy Parisian courtyard while his wife teaches violin in the apartment above. If this film was a novel you could rip half the pages out to represent the amount of storyline in the picture. But this does not take away anything from this piece of cinematic magic. Truffauts use of the camera and soundtrack is as usual the making of the film.It is obvious that this film is a one-man creation. How many filmmakers could you say that of today? The balance of characters, incidents and minute side glance at daily living restores your faith that art and craftmanship is making a tender comment on life can make a deep one too. The couple soon become parents and Antoine lands, by pure chance, an unprestigious job in a prestigious American construction company. But Domestic bliss soon tires our hero and he is tempted to the bed of a statuesque Japenese girl. The story is told with Truffauts usual wit and charm and filled with affectionate homages to filmmakers from Jean Renoir to Jaques Tati.

Antoine works as a florist's assistant, in the courtyard of his house. Christine, his wife, a violin teacher, finds out she's pregnant. Amid unforeseen circumstances and arguments, Antoine gets involved with a woman, putting his marriage at risk.

From the saga of Antoine Doinel (Truffaut followed the fictional life of this character for 20 years), Bed & Board, the penultimate film in the collection, is the lightest and most entertaining, thus breaking the content of the previous ones, which were material for reflection in the character study and social situation at the time (from the late 60s to the late 80s).

Truffaut never told bad stories, and here is an example of a marriage, which, like so many others, reached the breaking point faster than previously thought, and need help to survive.

The chemistry between Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade is fabulous, with really good scenes and dialogues, even when the result is not as good as expected.