 |
| The 1960s-chic stars of François Truffaut's Antoine and Colette look young and intriguing on this poster for the short |
Antoine et Colette is a 32 minute short, which was great French writer/director François Truffaut's installment in the anthology Love at Twenty/L'amour à Vingt Ans, which also features shorts from directors Shintarô Ishihara, Marcel Ophüls, Renzo Rossellini and Andrzej Wajda.
The film reconnects us with Antoine and his friend Rene from Truffaut's tender hit debut The 400 Blows/Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959) for the second in what came to be five films about Antoine, following him go from boy to grownup, every time in the shape of Jean-Pierre Léaud (A Matter of Taste/Une Affaire de Goût (2000))
It is wonderful to see that the famously open, beach-set ending of Les Quatre Cents Coups was not a tragic farewell to a lost youngster:
Antoine has matured three years and is now 17 and lives alone in Paris, where he works for Philips, manufacturing LPs. He falls in love with another music-lover, Colette, who regrettably does not repay his sentiments and actually acts very shabbily towards her young suitor.
With charming music and editing ploys and the story, which in all its delicate simplicity is one of unrequited love, this short plays like a delicious, bittersweet trifle.
Related posts:
François Truffaut: The Bride Wore Black (1968) - Truffaut lets Moreau serve ice-cold revenge
Stolen Kisses/Baisers Volés (1968) - Minor nouvelle vague Antoine Doinel-romcom
The melancholic song Love at Twenty plays over a poignant still photo montage during the short's ending in this clip
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Antoine and Colette premiered 22 June (France and Germany's Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 32 minutes. Producer Pierre Roustang contacted Truffaut about the anthology or omnibus movie idea, and Truffaut helped pick the other 4 filmmakers for it. The project allowed him to go back to his alter ego Antoine character, whom he would revisit and keep alive in another 3 films. The story here reflects Truffaut's own quitting a welder job to move after a girl he fancied to Paris as a 17 year-old, who would eventually turn him down. Shooting took place in Paris, France. The film was released in 7 more European markets up to 1965, as well as in the US and Japan, but gross information is regrettably lacking. The Antoine Doinel saga continued with Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979). Truffaut returned first with Los 4 Golpes (1962, short) and theatrically with The Soft Skin/La Peau Douce (1964). Léaud returned first in Mata Hari - Agent H.21 (1964); Marie-France Pisier (Parking (1985)) in The Devil and the Ten Commandments/Le Diable et les Dix Commandements (1962). 3,591 IMDb users have given Antoine and Colette a 7.6/10 average rating.]
What do you think of Antoine and Colette?
No comments:
Post a Comment