A film review by Sara Terrell Copyright 1998 Sara Terrell
"La Peau douce" Directed by Francois Truffaut Written by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard Cinematography by Raoul Coutard Music by Georges Delerue Starring Jean Desailly, Francoise Dorleac, and Nelly Bendetti B/W 1964 French
Rating ***1/2
Warning: The review below contains spoilers. Consider yourself forewarned.
Truffaut's "La Peau douce" is a simple story of adultery and revenge, but that simple story leaves plenty of room for rampant emotion. Pierre Lachenay (Desailly) is a successful publisher who is married happily, if somewhat dully to Franca (Bendetti). They have a young daughter, Sabine, whom Pierre dotes on, calling her "ma poupee" (my doll). On a business trip, Pierre meets air hostess Nicole (Dorleac). They happen to be staying at the same hotel, and they end up having a passionate one night stand. Upon his return to Paris, Pierre is hesitant to call Nicole, but finally he gives in to his desires and they embark upon an affair. Pierre and Franca are growing apart because of Pierre's growing absence from the home. Franca accuses him of having an affair, but Pierre denies it, blaming his absence on a need for time alone. The relationship is so strained however, that they decide to separate. Pierre asks Nicole to marry him, but she refuses and breaks off their affair. Meanwhile, Franca finds proof of the affair, and not knowing that it is over, walks into a cafe and shoots Pierre.
In watching "La Peau douce" it is easy to see Truffaut's fascination with Hitchcock, and the idea of unattainable happiness. Nicole is not the typical Hitchcockian blonde fire and ice, but she contains that element of tease that was so prevalent in Hitchcock's heroines. She entices Pierre to adultery and then eventually dumps him. She is not a seductress, though. The characters of Pierre and Nicole are presented as mutually falling in love, and indeed, we, the viewers are there rooting them on. For a while, it seems as though Pierre and Nicole might end up happy, but that idea is destroyed quickly in the last 20 minutes of the film.
The film is well crafted and very watchable. The simplicity of the story is accentuated by Pierre's turmoil. He loves Nicole, but he genuinely loves his wife and daughter as well and it is that dilemma which fuels the film. If Pierre's wife was a repulsive character, we might find it easy to give all our sympathy to Pierre and Nicole. But, the fact that Pierre's wife is a seemingly nice person leaves us unsure of where to place our loyalty.
There is a particularly well-written score by Georges Delerue that manages to convey both the simplicity of falling in love and the complexity of love that is forbidden. There is also some fine acting in the film, particularly by Francoise Dorleac. She manages to capture in Nicole a dichotomy of naivite and wisdom. She is largely unknown to American audiences due to her death at age 25 in an auto accident in 1968. Judging by her career up to that point, had she lived, it is likely that she would have become a star of international proportions.
If there is any major fault to be found it is with the character of Franca. Nelly Bendetti portrays Franca convincingly, but she simply isn't given enough development. We know enough about her to understand why she reacts violently in the end, but not enough to understand why she goes to the extreme of shooting Pierre. Given the amount of development devoted to her character, when she began loading the gun, I was actually expecting her to kill Nicole.
"La Peau douce" was not well received at Cannes , where it was regarded as somewhat of a comedown for Truffaut and was overshadowed by Jacques Demy's "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" (which starred Dorleac's younger sister, Catherine Deneuve). That is indeed unfortunate because, in my opinion, it is one of Truffaut's finest features. and deserves a place of worthiness in the cinema.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews