Love on the Run

This is the fifth and last part of Francois Truffauts Antoine Doinel cycle, a biographical movie series about the growing up of a romantic Parisian, played by Jean Pierre Leaud all the time, and all his struggles with love and life which was produced over a period of 20 years.

This last part from 1978 shows us Doinel doing what he's also doing in the previous four parts - falling in love with numerous women, trying to keep up relationships, looking for love, flirting etc. While the first part from 1959 showed us Doinel's childhood in a poor family with a hard and beating father and his longing for respect and love, the following parts are less interesting in my opinion.

The final chapter is rather superfluous, with jokes falling flat, no real script, no suspense or a really interesting story line, and the actors are just running around most of the time. If you have watched the previous Doinel films it might be interesting to see this sequel (which is not really an end), but I suggest you to watch the first Doinel movie "Les 400 coups" ("The 400 Blows") instead, or Truffauts "L'homme qui l'amait les femmes" ("The Man Who Loved Women"), a far more interesting study on love, obsession and fetishism.

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!

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.

This is Antoine Doinel's goodbye to all of us who followed his life and experiences through 20 years, from "The 400 Blows", "Antoine &t Colette", "Stolen Kisses" to "Bed & Board" and finally here in "Love on the Run"; from his problems at school to his life as a working man, married man, later divorced, reader, writer, lover, soldier, florist, private detective and more; in short a full life. Truffaut's alter ego (always played by the amazing Jean-Pierre Léaud) takes us through many moments of his life in the previous films while trying to correct few things in the present with his latest girl, Sabine (Dorothée).

Here, all the women of Doinel's life appears together and now he has a chance to figure out why his relationships simply doesn't work. Recently divorced of Christine (Claude Jade), and involved with no good terms with Sabine, Doinel meets again Colette (Marie-France Pisier), his first love and they share some secrets, remember some moments when they two met for the first time, and both characters discover more things about each other, about life and about love.

At the trivia section is mentioned that Truffaut thought about making a huge mistake while filming this sequel, and I think he shouldn't be ashamed of it. It isn't much of a film since half of it it's flashbacks taken from all of Doinel's films plus a few moments of "Le Nuit Americaine" included as an interesting subplot of Doinel's romantic affairs (even though he plays a different character in that film). Compared to the other movies of the series this is less comical, a little bit too serious and it's more focused on how the kid that seems to never grow finally realizes what love really is than his amusing and funny life experiences as a working man.

But seeing all the flashbacks, those memorable moments covering 20 years of a person is breathtaking, refreshing, unique in all motion picture history. We can look back and see how much Antoine/Léaud changed through these years and some of us practically saw him growing up and I bet Truffaut must have loved this experience, seeing someone he could relate with and share some of his own experiences and see them portrayed on screen. One of the most touching moments of "Love on the Run" is the reunion between Doinel and the lover of his mother, whom he haven't seen in years, and the way they talk about the past, we see scenes from "The 400 Blows" when Doinel was a kid and saw him with his mother, and he hated the guy for it, then few years later they are happy to see each other, a bond between Doinel's troubled life and his life while a grown up man.

Most of the reviews on this classic are very superficial here. "Love on the Run" is a memorable, delightful and magic experience through great moments of one of the most interesting, inspiring and charming characters of all time, and this is his goodbye to us, always striving, always fighting, always believing in something and always managing to get what he wants even though we as audience might think he'll be lost forever. Doinel echoes a part of us that never should die: our youth. 10/10

Love on the Run (1979), the closing chapter in François Truffaut's celebrated series of films focusing on the character of Antoine Doinel; a near-iconic figure in French cinema brought vividly to life by the always great Jean-Pierre Léaud. Here, the actors injects the part with his usual nervous charm and cocky likability, though it is clear that character of Antoine is , still as uncertain about life, love and fidelity as ever before. On a Structural level, the film is built around Antoine's divorce from his wife Christine - with the reappearance of Claude Jade from Stolen Kisses (1968) and Bed and Board (1970) - inter-cut with flashbacks to early escapades from Antoine's presented in the style of a clip show.

This particular stylistic device does set up a sense of familiarity for new viewers, however; with such a slight plot, the flashbacks end up becoming the most interesting part of the movie, with what little new footage there is so repetitive that it feels like you're watching the same scene over and over again. In fact, the film is so hastily put together that it looks like Truffaut is desperate to get the series finished and out of the way, so that he can finally move on with the more progressive work that he was attempting with films like The Green Room (1979) and The Last Metro (1980).

Still, the film can sometimes be charming and the actors are all on fine form, but the whole thing seems lacking somewhat; with the use of repeated imagery and scenes cut and pasted from the previous films making this feel too much like a retread rather than a radical re-interpretation. For me, the film just seems empty, deflated and somehow lacking the allure, beauty and sophistication that was always synonymous with Truffaut's work or at least the films of his that I am familiar with. For me, Love on the Run was something of a slight, disappointing and unimaginative film that failed to inspire me in the way I had initially hoped.