ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Lee Eisenberg I don't know whether or not Claude Lelouch was considered part of the French New Wave, but judging by "Un homme et une femme" ("A Man and a Woman" in English), I'd say that he should be. The Oscar-winning movie chronicles a relationship that has arisen following tragic circumstances. The switching back and forth between black-and-white and color adds a mystifying angle to the plot. But most important is the complexity of the characters and subtlety of the plot. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée put on the performances of a lifetime. I guess that the movie's overall point is that life comes at us fast and can throw in unpleasant surprises, so we need to develop social connections however possible.A masterpiece.

evening1 This film taps in to love the way we wish it could happen.Girl meets guy by happenstance, the chemistry's incredible, he thinks about her and she thinks about him -- and he doesn't drop her at the first sign of a problem.Director Claude LeLouche works like an impressionist painter here, creating a highly romantic canvas that is backed by one of the best soundtracks ever. Flashing back and jumping forward, and switching between black and white and color, LeLouche creates characters of some depth who are neither entirely realistic nor totally make-believe.I was intrigued to read on Wikipedia that one of LeLouche's films had been decried as misogynistic. I kind of understood upon observing Jean-Louis tell Anne: "It bores women to talk of technicalities. But I can tell you some trivia." The exotic-looking Anouk Aimee is winsome as Anne but needed a better hair stylist. (Was anyone else distracted by her constant efforts to keep her hair out of her eyes? She's even doing it in the movie poster!) The daring telegram she sends to Jean-Louis, after only two platonic outings together, made me gasp, but I suppose that was part of the fantasy here.Jean-Louis Trintingnant does well as the male lead, and it was intriguing to have that bit with his mistress and the racing magazine thrown in, showing that he could be a player just like untrustworthy men in real life.The back stories for this film are also interesting. According to Wikipedia, Aimee went on to marry Pierre Barouh, who plays her tragic husband in the film (they divorced three years later), and the actress, possibly a descendant of Alfred Dreyfus of the "Dreyfus Affair," converted to Judaism later in life. (Barouh had been a "hidden child" during the Naziism of his youth.) Wikipedia also says it was Trintignant who'd suggested Aimee for the role of Anne. Tragically, his own daughter was murdered in her 40s in a case that was controversial throughout France.

farrokh-bulsara Anne (Anouk Aimée) and rally pilot Jean-Louis (jean-Louis Trintignant) meet in Dauville, in Northern France, where their respective children study in boarding school: both widows, they guess to start a relationship, but their past could be an obstacle.Putting aside the programmatic banality of the mushy plot, "Un homme, une femme" is a very interesting film for the way it's written, then filmed, as the image of memory substitutes word, music denies dialog and oppresses the picture (the famous and frivolous theme by Francis Lai), the sudden editing, the freshness of a style that, by color or b&w print, hand camera or frenetic cuts, has been academic as prototype/stereotype of French cinema, and even, years later, a sample for commercials. Style, of course, isn't enough to make happier a schmaltzy and predictable story – where death, as love, is just anecdote –, but Lelouch has done a good job creating a nice compendium of pictures, music, sounds, faces, and drawing a love mythology – kisses, hugs, doubts, thoughts, stations, trains, telegrams, phone calls, car rides, hotel rooms, dilemmas and confusions – which is banal, gratuitous, partial, but incisive and well kept in rhythm.*** out of 5

Nazi_Fighter_David That night Anne Gauthier (Aimée) missed her train… Jean-Louis Duroc (Trintignant) offered her a ride back to Paris… Both had their children at the Deauville boarding school… She has a girl named Françoise and he has a boy named Antoine… Jean-Louis knew that her husband was a stuntman who had a tragic accident… She knew that he was married and his wife commits suicide… Claude Lelouch begins his sensitive exploration on that boat ride where there was a completely different energy in the air, where the sea was seen alive in all its many mood and through intentions looks, and lingering hands he let us know that yes, something was beginning to happen between Anne and Jean-Louis… On that wonderful beach—and through long shots—we see the couple with their children walking, playing, running with hundreds of seagulls screaming all around… There was a great chemistry between Aimée and Trintignant in "A Man and a Woman"… The attraction between the two stars really resonated… Aimée was very sweet and gorgeous as a woman, but her constant incursions into the past left her experience with more sorrow than joy… Trintignant was charming… His acting extremely natural… When he received Anne's telegram he left his elegant dinner and took his car driving hundreds of kilometers to join Anne and be with the children… Lelouch captures breathtaking shots of Deauville's spectacular beach… We all remember the unforgettable scene of the man walking alike as his dog… The film won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film