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Credits
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Summary
In Paris of the early 1900s, a young middle-class French man, Claude Roc, meets and becomes
friends with a young English woman, Anne Brown. Anne invites Claude to stay with
her and her sister, Muriel, at their house in Wales. There, Claude is initially
attracted to Anne, but Anne diverts his attention towards Muriel. When Claude and
Muriel realise that they are in love, Claude’s mother insists that they should separate
for one year. Then, if they are still in love, they may marry with her accord.
After just six months of separation, Claude writes to Muriel to say that he no longer
loves her, news which devastates Muriel. By chance, Anne meets up with Claude in
Paris and the two enjoy a short-lived romance. Anne discovers that Claude’s love
for Muriel has not died yet...
Review
This is one of Truffaut’s most intense and sombre films about romantic love. He
made the film a short while after actress Catherine Deneuve put an end to their two-year
long love affair. As a consequence, the film is marked by the director’s personal
touch to an extent probably not seen since his first long film, Les quatre cents coups
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The theme of the film is a curious mixture of traditional romanticism (in the style of the Brontë sisters) and Truffaut’s own intimate depiction of love - physical and emotional. Throughout, there is a sense of torment and guilt, best exemplified by Muriel’s tortured confession of self-abuse. The three characters in the film (Claude, Anne and Muriel) have great emotional and intellectual depth, but none seems capable of understanding what love is or how to deal with it. As result, all of their lives are damaged, and therein lies the tragedy. Although the film has its strengths (in particular the stunning photography), it has some very noticeable deficiencies. Despite the intrinsic power in the drama, its realisation in this film leaves an impression of artificiality and coldness which seriously undermines its emotional impact. Jean-Pierre Léaud appears far too reserved and dispassionate to be entirely convincing in his role, and his two co-stars often come across as stiff and as starchy as their Edwardian corsets. Some of the English dialogue used in the film is really quite poor, and when delivered with such perfect diction by the two English-speaking lead actresses, it ressembles a parody of a BBC classic drama serial - an immediate passion-killer. The film has often been compared - unfairly - with Truffaut’s earlier film, Jules et Jim, which was based on Roché’s other novel. The two films are actually very dissimilar in detail, although both involve an apparently irreconcilable love triangle. Les deux anglaises et le continent is a much more profound and moving tale about the power of love to shape and mar a life, and the dangers that repressed love can create. Unfortunately. Truffaut was not able to capture the potential of the novel as brilliantly as he did with Jules et Jim, so there is a strong sense of disappointment with this film. When it was first released in France in 1971, the film was practically a commercial disaster. Truffaut had to cut 15 minutes off the film, and even then it received some pretty harsh commentary from the critics of the day. The film received a fair reappraisal when it was re-released in 1985, after the director’s death, in its original, unedited form. The film is now highly regarded in some circles, although few would regard it as the masterpiece which Truffaut envisaged making. © James Travers 2000
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