Un homme et une femme (1966)
Directed by Claude Lelouch

Film Review

For many, Un homme et une femme is the quintessential French romantic film - artistically self-conscious to the point of unintended self-parody and yet so authentically played by its lead actors - Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée at their most captivating - that it can hardly fail to melt the hearts of the romantically inclined. The lightweight plot (which would barely cover a postage stamp) and awkward melange of styles do not diminish the charms of a film that perfectly evokes that unmistakable sensation of giddiness and joie de vivre that takes hold when Cupid has done his work and mischievously spliced together two human lives with scant regard for the consequences. The film was directed by Claude Lelouch, one of the most prolific of the French New Wave filmmakers, and is his best known and, arguably, most inspired work, although technically it is far less impressive than many of his subsequent cinematic offerings, notably the superlative La Bonne année (1973), which includes some extremely cheeky references to this film.

Critical reaction to Un homme et une femme on its initial release in 1966 was, in the main, pretty hostile, but this did not prevent it from being a worldwide box office hit (its audience in France alone was over four million) and scooping a host of coveted film awards.  Having stolen the Palme d'Or at Cannes (to the consternation of many film critics the world over), it garnered four Oscar nominations, winning in the categories of Best Foreign Language Film and Best Screenplay.  Anouk Aimée won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for her performance, whilst the film took the Golden Globe Best Film award. The film's catchy main theme, composed by Francis Lai, was released as a single and became one of the defining sounds of the decade.  Twenty years on, Lelouch brought Trintignant and Aimée together to make a sequel, Un homme et une femme : vingt ans déjà (1986).  Whilst the film still has its detractors and is easily faulted (mainly on account of its lack of substance), its iconic status cannot be denied.

The film's success came at an opportune time for Claude Lelouch.  Unlike many of his New Wave contemporaries, he did not make an immediate splash at the start of his career and his previous film, Les Grands moments, had been a commercial disaster.  It was whilst walking alone on the beach at Deauville, one overcast day in September 1965, that he saw the distant figure of a woman with her daughter and suddenly had the idea for his next film.  Unfortunately, he had difficulty selling it to his producer Pierre Braunberger (not surprisingly, as he had bankrolled Lelouch's previous flop), who was of the opinion that cinema audiences were now only interested in big budget action thrillers.  Who would pay to watch a film about a middle-aged man and woman holding hands (and doing precious little else) in dreary Deauville?  Lelouch suffered another setback when his initial choice for the role of Anne, Romy Schneider, turned him down flat, having told him what a lousy director he was.  To secure an American release, Lelouch was obliged to shoot the film in colour, but budgetary limitations made this impossible, so he had no choice but to shoot half of the film in black and white.  What is often cited as a directorial masterstroke - the film's haphazard switching between colour and black and white - was actually down to economic necessity.  The irony is that if Lelouch had been more successful in selling his concept, he would have shot the entire film in colour and it would most certainly have had far less of an impact.

The remarkable appeal of Un homme et une femme is hard to pin down.  Just how can a film which at times looks more like a homemade documentary about racing car drivers than a romantic drama have been so well received?   One explanation for this has already been alluded to - the presence of two very charismatic young actors who each embodies most people's idea of French chic and sex appeal.   Since he was first noticed in Roger Vadim's Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956), Jean-Louis Trintignant had quickly established himself as the young romantic lead of choice in French cinema, defying the traditional notions of masculinity by showing a more fragile and sensitive masculine persona.  Aimée's career extended back even further, to the late 1940s, and she too had challenged conventions with her portrayals of the modern liberated woman, most notably in Federico Fellini's La Dolce vita (1960) and Jacques Demy's Lola (1961).   Lelouch could hardly have chosen a more perfect pair to play his leads in Un homme et une femme than Trintignant and Aimée.  Both have a quality of ordinariness and modernity that make them easy to identify with, and yet they also have an extraordinary acting talent that allows them to bring complexity and depth to their portrayals.  The casting of Trintignant was particularly apt as two of his uncles (Louis and Maurice) had been professional racing car drivers - Maurice Trintignant had won both the Monaco Grand Prix (twice) and the 24 hours Le Mans race.  It was whilst making Un homme et une femme that Aimée fell in love, not with Trintignant (who was spoken for), but with her other co-star, Pierre Barouh, the composer and songwriter who plays her character's husband.  The two married shortly after completing work on the film, although their marriage would only last a few years.

Another factor in the film's success is Claude Lelouch's undisciplined knack of capturing the truth of human experience on film, through a combination of cinéma vérité-style camerawork and improvisation, the French New Wave at its must chaotically uninhibited.  There is a spontaneity and immediacy to Un homme et une femme that is instantly felt and readily embraced, even when you watch it today.  Lelouch breaks new ground in his approach to film narrative, telling his story not in a conventional linear fashion but as a startling montage of fractured impressionistic vignettes drawn from past, present and imagined experiences. Some aggressive crosscutting between the two protagonists assures us that ultimately they will end up together, but Lelouch teases us by increasing the separation between them - both geographically (through the seemingly interminable car rally) and emotionally (Anne appears to prefer to live in the past with her husband than risk another amorous adventure in the present).   Although Lelouch does occasionally get carried away with his creative flights of fancy (am I the only one to notice that he has a slightly disturbing dog fixation?), he succeeds in his objective, which is to convincingly portray two people falling in love with one another, conveying genuine human feeling rather than the saccharine Hollywood-style alternative.  For all its sins, Un homme et une femme still manages to twang all the right emotional chords and remains one of the most intoxicating of all French film romances.

Film Synopsis

Jean-Louis Duroc is a racing car driver.  Anne Gauthier is a script-girl.  Both are in their mid-thirties,  recently widowed and have a small child.  They meet, by chance, when they take their children to a boarding school in Deauville.  When Anne misses her train, Jean-Louis offers her a lift back to Paris in his car, and she accepts.  They talk about their lives, their careers and their departed spouses.  They feel comfortable in each other's company and soon become good friends.  On completing the arduous Monte Carlo rally, Jean-Louis receives an unexpected telegram from Anne, affirming what he has always known.  Without a moment's delay, he heads back to Paris, to the woman he loves, to a future of unbridled happiness.  But the romance is threatened by Anne's inability to let go of her past.  For her, her husband is still alive, and whilst he lives there can be no place in her heart for Jean-Louis...