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Credits
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Summary
Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert,
he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes
to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still
only regards him as a casual friend...
Review
Shortly after completing work on Jules et Jim, François Truffaut was commissioned
by the producer Pierre Roustang to contribute a short film segment to his anthology L’Amour
à vingt ans. Four other internationally renowned directors were also
invited to contribute to the film, which was concerned with the theme of first love.
The film proved to be a commercial disaster and was withdrawn when it failed to have any
impact at the box office. Truffaut himself was unhappy with the film in its
entirety.
Whilst L’Amour à vingt ans has fallen into obscurity, Truffaut’s contribution to the film, Antoine et Colette, has survived as a short film in its own right. The film is available on home video and is often screened at small cinemas and film clubs. The film’s survival and enduring popularity stems from its important placing in the Truffaut canon. It represents Truffaut’s first attempt to re-use the character Antoine Doinel, which he created in his earlier, semi-autobiographical film, Les Quatre cents coups. Jean-Pierre Léaud, Truffaut’s friend and protégé, reprised the role of Doinel, now in his late teens. His co-star is Marie-France Pisier, a talented actress who would become popular and much sought after by film directors in subsequent years. As in the earlier Doinel instalment, Antoine et Colette is a closely auto-biographical account of an incident in Truffaut’s own life, specifically one of his ill-fated love affairs when he was a young man. It is a poignant yet light-hearted short film, in which Truffaut allowed his actors to improvise to create a sense of spontaneity and realism. Truffaut re-used much of this film in his final Doinel film, L’Amour en fuitein 1979. © James Travers 2001
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