Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Cristi_Ciopron Pastiches in the noble sense of the word, Truffaut's B movies, semi—serious and intelligent, are constructed on an unusual report—the delicious contrast between the finesse and the brutality/ brusqueness. Finesse of conception, of treatment, of methods; brutality and brusqueness of the primary literary sources—testifying of Truffaut's decadent attraction towards the brutal and the sordid (Truffaut himself had a rather naughty adolescence, and his physiognomy shows a certain human stuff, there are Lombrosian traces that somehow are at odds or seem to contradict his reputation of a gentle, emasculate human being and his high and refined intellectuality; he obviously wanted to look like the angelic leads—Léaud …;he did not).From this juxtaposing of finesse and brutality issue a nonchalance and a delicious contrast. The respective pictures are not _epigone flicks, they are not pastiches in this pejorative sense, they are not derivative—but ingenious, ironic, and contradictory. They are also highly cultured products—the same vacuum pomp found at Godard as well (with an entire different function in Truffaut's cinema, etc.). This artificiality might seem at first disconcerting; yet it is of a Hitchcockian efficiency, and strictly functional. This artificiality bears values—several values, either human, personal or artistic. It can not be dismissed as a defect. It is part of the charm.

Napoleonforever Humor, action, suspense, romance all rolled into this underrated Truffaut film; circa 1972 and probably was not well received during the titles' release. Starting out as a research project for female criminals, to "saving" an innocent prisoner then onto getting imprisoned yourself( The Professor) and the ultimate betrayals from the ones who are charged to protect people from such evils, the Attorney.Bernadette Lafont stars as Camille, the imprisoned woman who has had bad luck since childhood( and she does not help her causes along the way at the most inopportune times), shines and carried this movie the entire way. Her beauty and expressions are at the highest levels ever seen on the silver screen.Yes, many plots and twists, but they are all spaced and placed in order, via flashbacks in the very beginning, and the sequences of subsequent events throughout this film make sense. The audience is not quite sure if Camille deserved her fate in prison and what her true character is like; will she repay the Professor for freeing her as he freed her in kind? Did Camille have what it takes to be faithful to a man or did the continuing bad luck and survival force her into the "easier way out"? The audience cannot possibly expect how this movie turns out, thus achieving the rare quality of total suspense.Cinematography is excellent for a 1972 film, and getting an Exterminator, Western-style Saloon washed-up whiskey-soaked wanna-be and the other characters were all a credit to good writing, and finally, fantastic directing by Truffaut. Part of the French New Wave of Cinema was the exclusion of Studio sets and backgrounds, and it is evident that Truffaut was a Master of locations as he selected unforgettable places and structures.Many say Truffaut was an overrated director. I say not so. Truffaut was brilliant and left this world too soon. If you want to see overrated, keep seeing the Hollywood cookie-cutter promoted-to-the-hilt templates that are the cash-cow machine for the industry.

guylevin Starting out "Une belle fille comme moi" seems like it might be going somewhere interesting - The study of the criminal female mind. But this film settles quickly into a silly immature comedy ripe with stereotypes and overacting. Alas, if only any of these were actually funny.

Alice Liddel Like Michael Winner, Truffaut thinks a feminist movie would be about a sexually promiscuous woman who turns the tables on a serious of idiotic men who are so caricatured that they bear little relation to the real oppressors facing women at this time, especially in institutionally misogynistic France. I should really like this film, it has everything I wanted - directed by the maker of my three desert-island films; magic realism; a Chinese-whispers narrative structure; bawdy comedy; grotesques; superb performances. Bernadette Lafont is sprightly in the lead role, escaping all the traps men lay for her (including her director). Andre Dussolier is sensational is his first role as the intellectual, spectacles-wearing professor who can't see beyond his own nose, and Guy Marchand is hilarious as a spectacularly vain rock star. All these things are good. The film isn't. Go figure.