Taking part in a poll on ICM for the best movies of 1981,I began looking on Amazon UK for DVDs from the year. Already making plans to look at French cinema from the year,I was pleased to find a François Truffaut creation,which led to me going next door. The plot:Working as a teacher in a small town, Bernard Coudray keeps events that happened in his past to himself,with Bernard pushing any questions aside from his wife Arlette and their young son Thomas. Seeing new neighbours moving in next door,the Coudray's decide to go and greet them. Welcomed in by Philippe Bauchard,Bernard begins to fear that he can't keep his past secret,when he is greeted by Philippe's wife Mathilde,who was Bernard's first ever love.View on the film:Supplementing the feature with informative extras, Artificial Eye delivers a classy transfer,with the image and soundtrack being clean,and the subtitles moving at a readable speed. Mentioning in the commentary that they both "clicked" the moment they met François Truffaut,Fanny Ardant (who got married to Truffaut) and Gérard Depardieu both give sparkling performances as Bernard Coudray and Mathilde Bauchard. Afraid of looking back into the past, Depardieu gives Bernard a fragile calm which erupts as he begins welcoming the memories of the past. Being more at ease than Bernard, Fanny Ardant brims Mathilde with a quiet,open confidence,that reveals itself in Mathilde's attempts to get Bernard to open up to Arlette about his past.Keeping track of their decade spanning relationship,co-writer/(with Suzanne Schiffman and Jean Aurel) director François Truffaut & cinematographer William Lubtchansky continue expanding on Truffaut's stylish tracking shots,via the tracking shots here elegantly carrying the passage of time between the couple. Striking an abrasive melancholy final note,Truffaut builds towards the final encounter with Georges Delerue's great "suspense" score gradually gaining ground in the romance.Inspired by the Tristan and Iseult,the screenplay by Truffaut/ Schiffman and Aurel delicately piece together the lingering love that Bernard wants to keep in the past,as the woman next door,opens the door to Bernard's past love.

This is perhaps the most Chabrol-ian of Truffaut films. It has the lighthearted sense of wonder that permeates even Truffaut's darkest films (such as this one)but the claustrophobic, cerebral tension of a Chabrol film.But while Chabrol always embraced the dementedness of his subject matter, Truffaut doesn't really acknowledge the truth of how awful his characters' lives are. Truffaut looks for beauty and wonder in everything, even things that don't merit it. He is fascinated by their quirkiness and doesn't really acknowledge the consequences of their actions on the people around them.In addition, this film, like many of Truffaut's, is mystified by women, while perhaps being too accepting of men. Chabrol, as male- centric as his films can be, spares neither gender in his depictions of mental illness and emotional cruelty.But in this film, the camera dwells on Fanny Ardant's nervous, quivering face, even when she's going about her daily business, as if to invite the audience to gawk at her feminine hysteria. Meanwhile, the camera goes easy on Gerard Depardieu, staying at a comfortable distance and never lingering, no matter how irrational and strange his character acts.It's most interesting for its parts - the scenery (including Gerard Depardieu's workplace, which is a canal full of model oil tankers), the cinematography, the acting, the Delerue music, et al. But it's missing something. If you enjoy the naive, bewildered, and subtly misogynistic perspective that Truffaut takes in this movie, you might love it. Truffaut came from the same worldview in "Jules and Jim" - "the world is wonderful and women are crazy" - but in that movie, he had a tongue-in-cheek style and playful, larger- than-life story to go along with it. This movie has a more realistic, down-to-earth plot and setting, and Truffaut's weaknesses show through.If you're not a Chabrol fan, you likely won't be able to put your finger on what's missing. But if you're a Chabrol fan, you've seen this story before, and you've seen it done better.

La Femme d'a Cote shows violent emotional state of two melancholic lovers.Truffaut wanted to reveal the extreme steps of frustrated love.It is a brilliant story of passion set in the provincial french town of Grenoble which shows that love is the only thing that is universal.Bernard and Mathilde are truly the perfect lovers Truffaut wished to exploit in his film.There is a sense of urgency in their love affair as in a place where all the people know each other,it is highly improbable that any love affair can remain a secret.La Femme d'a Cote has agreeably given an idea about small town charm wherein Truffaut has vividly portrayed all the minor details of provincial life.Truffaut,while filming La Femme d'a Cote,hoped that the viewer would not be tempted to take sides in order to call one wrong and the other wrong but would love them both as he has loved them.Truffaut will remain the only filmmaker who has mastered the art of human emotions.La Femme d'a Cote gives an impression of an affecting account of human foibles by illustrating how a happy married man sacrifices everything for trivial passion.

Despite its distinguished provenance, and despite the presence of the stunning Fanny Ardant, this is pure soap. It even has a local busybody chattering background on the characters, a tested U.S. soap-opera technique. Gerard Depardieu is wooden and unconvincing as Ardant's lover. The rest of the cast (except for Ardant) is adequate at best. I don't think Truffault ever made a worse movie. It does exhibit his economy of expression and beautiful style, but nothing can save it from its own sentimentality and simple-mindedness. I don't believe this turkey has ever been in general release in the U.S., which should soften the hearts of even the most savage haters of the French. They did us the favor of keeping this one mostly to themselves.