A Man and a Woman (1966)

Director: Claude Lelouch
Writers: Pierre Uytterhoeven
Stars: Anouk Aimée, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Barouh
Runtime: 102 minutes    

Plot: A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. They become friends, close friends, and then she reveals that she can't have a lover because, for her, her husband's memory is still too strong. Much of the film is told wordlessly in action, or through hearing one of their thoughts as they go about their day.

Review: This frankly romantic French drama, which shared the best-picture award at the Cannes Film Festival this year with Pietro Germi's "Signore e Signori," is a beautiful and sometimes breath-taking exposition of visual imagery intended to excite the emotions. The only trouble is that the drama is banal.

It's a commonplace, superficial showing of the spontaneous combustion of love between a movie script-girl who is a widow (and the mother of a cute little girl) and an auto-racing driver who is a widower (and the father of a darling little boy). But that doesn't say the film is lacking in a free, vigorous cinematic style or that it fails to catch the viewer in little incidents that have poignancy and charm. Mr. Lelouch, who was his own script writer as well as director and cameraman, has a rare skill at photographing clichés so that they sparkle and glow with poetry.

They seem two dimly sentient beings moved by memories of conventional affections and the compulsions of ordinary love.

Reviewed by Mohaiminul Islam