Love on the Run

True, there are a bit too much flash back in the film (with some lengthy ones,too), but after the previous four Antoine Doinel films, this last installment brings so much sentiment and feeling that is quite unique and unmatched in any other films. Whether Antoine's life will change or not, nobody can tell. The important thing is, he has to face the reality this time. He's no longer young, plus he's a divorced father and struggling writer (what a combination!). Yet as all the people around him changed, Antoine still has the child-like energy and belief in love. That's what makes him so attractive as a protagonist in FIVE films. Truffaut really gave us film lovers a great gift. Too bad that he died in 1984, or we might have a 6th or 7th film on Antoine Doinel!

Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is having a love affair with the vinyl seller Colette Tazzi (Marie-France Pisier). After five years of a troubled marriage with separations, Antoine and Christine Doinel (Claude Jade) have a private audience with the judge (Marie Henriau) and conclude an amicable divorce process. His former sweetheart and presently lawyer Colette Tazzi (Marie-France Pisier) sees Antoine leaving the court and she goes to a bookstore to buy his autobiographical novel that was published a couple of years ago. When Antoine goes with Alphonse (Julien Dubois) to the train station for the travel vacation of his son, he sees Colette in another train and he jumps from the platform to the train and travels with her. They recall their adolescent love and disclose their sentimental relationships; but when Colette tells how she raises money for her self-support, Antoine is disappointed and seeks out Sabine.

"L'Amour en Fuite" is the conclusion of the sentimental saga of the character Antoine Doinel, the insecure alter ego of François Truffaut that began in "Les Quatre Cents Coups" and followed through "L'Amour à Vingt Ans", "Baisers Volés" and "Domicile Conjugal", inclusive with the use of scenes in the many flashbacks of these movies with his recollections and troubled love affairs. This character has an evolution from the needy fourteen years old boy rejected by his mother and his stepfather in the first movie. The lack of affection at home makes him a rebel, bad student, liar, reckless and a thief stealing objects and money at home in his adolescence. In the next movies, he grows-up, but with a fragile emotional structure and the viewer sees an unstable man incapable of having a steady relationship or commitment with the many beautiful women that he meets along his futile life. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Amor em Fuga" ("The Love on the Run")

By finding an opportunity to firmly end his cycle of films about Antoine Doinel, Francois Truffaut gave himself a great advantage by permitting this film to go to any lengths necessary as long as it concludes the series, which has essentially been represented as a number of chapters portraying the lives of one unusual Parisian man.

In The 400 Blows, Antoine struggled with finding his place in the world as an adolescent and the relationship with his parents. In Antoine and Colette he found the pitfalls associated with love, a trend that would continue in Stolen Kisses and Bed and Board. Love on the Run is brilliantly done in the way that it incorporates all of these details via flashbacks and sequences designed to remind the audience of characters seen in previous films. Truffaut carefully edits these scenes in such a way as to appear as nostalgic memories as well as to aid along the audience in understanding the reasons and consequences of these characters' actions.

Once again, this story focuses mainly on Antoine's ability (or inability) to have a relationship with a woman only for nearly everything to go wrong. Truffaut wisely brought back the two most important women to Antoine, his wife of 5 years Christine and his first great love from his teen years Colette. Scenes between the two women are particularly well-done as we get a glimpse into some real soul-searching for this complex character. Antoine also has a new woman in his life, the charming and bubbly Sabine who plays a most important role in this story that also manages to include subplots involving Antoine's relationship to his parents and a bit of detective work reminiscent of that beautiful film, Stolen Kisses. Clearly, this entire series is one of the best in cinema history. By focusing on one man and all the adventures and problems he must face, Truffaut has created some of the most realistic and indelible fictional characters in all of art. In some ways, these people are more real than the ones we know for they combine knowledge, understanding and wisdom learned in the past as well as hope and courage for the future. All great things must come to an end and this ending is as perfect as films get: funny, poignant and so warm and tender. To understand why Truffaut was such a special artist, look no further than these five chapters depicting the life of Antoine Doinel.

The spontaneous character Antoine Doinel, continues his journey through his show and tell, divorced from Christine, shacked up with Sabine, pursues long past fancies, but things don't quite gel.

We continue to observe the trials and tribulations that life presents to the often frustrated Antoine, with multiple flashbacks to previous presentations forming a significant part of the piece, you really need to be a fan of the series in order to appreciate the journey, the saga, the voyage, of the boy become man but still a boy. There's a good chance you can pick out numerous events that may align with your own passage, or from someone you know, which may escalate your appreciation. While an enjoyable piece, it does seem to have run its course, and left with more of a whimper than a whoop.

I always find it hard to watch a french movie from the eighties -I am french though, and a real patriot, be sure of that- because it feels like I'm trapped in my childhood or something and I will have to go to school or..whatever. It is always painful. For instance, the girl playing 'SAbine' in L'Amour en fuite is 'Dorothée', a T.V. figure from when I was seven or so. She was awful, supposedly very mean to children -but her show was devoted to them, weird, uh?- and a lesbian. But let's go back to Truffaut's movie: I am a big fan of Jean-Pierre Léaud, and in this movie his character Antoine Doisnel is still the same selfish, ridiculously precious little dandy. But I still love him ! It is very funny that in the end he goes back to something that looked a lot -to me- like a sub- La Maman et la Putain (from Eustache). Torn apart between several lost loves and one that is young and not tragic... What will Antoine do? Flee, as usual? You will have to see the movie I guess ! At least for Souchon's cool interpretation of the song he composed for the movie. What a smart guy ! Now he can sell tons of records.