La sirène du Mississipi

I've slowly been collecting the films available on DVD of both Catherine Deneuve and Francois Truffaut. Both actress and director have done some stinkers in their time - fortunately Mississipi Mermaid is not one of them.

Next to "The Soft Skin", coincidentally staring Deneuve's sister (the late Francoise Dorleac), this would have to be my favourite Truffaut film.

As well as directing, Truffaut also wrote the screenplay. Something that always strikes me about Truffaut is his almost childlike innocence when presenting a story -- one could almost call it naivety.

There's a scene towards the end of the film where Belmondo returns to the apartment in Lyon with the remains of the loot. He rings the doorbell and Deneuve answers wearing a negligee. In the time it takes Belmondo to reach their room from the street, Deneuve changes into her dress, puts on her best pair of stockings and shoes, then lies on the bed and pretends she is asleep. It's a scene that could almost come from the mind of a child - but that's Truffaut for you.

Watching Catherine Deneuve in her films of the late 60's is indeed a sensory pleasure. She is so extraordinarily beautiful it is almost painful for us to watch. Incidentally, for those fans, there are a couple of topless scenes of her in this film - indeed a sinful pleasure.

I disagree with previous posters. I see nothing 'Hitchcockian' about the film at all. As for the 'look' of it - i love the look of the older film stock used in the 60's. It certainly gives films of this period a unique look.

Highly recommended for both Deneuve and Truffaut fans......

This is one of the best films I've seen in the last years.Belmonndo and Deneuve shine in their respective roles, he as a naive plantation owner and she as an enigmatic trickster.Words won't do this masterpiece justice,suffice it to say that this is a movie that explores the darker side of love and the pain,humiliation and capacity for self-delusion that go with it, although it's dressed as a film noir. Forget that feeble remake with Jolie and Banderas, see the genuine artticle instead and treat yourselves to some moments of great cinematic beauty.

This agreeable French movie deals about a millionaire owner of a tobacco factory on an African island nearly to Madagascar named Louis(Jean Paul Belmondo). He's a single man looking wife, then he advertises a bride and gets a gorgeous woman named Julia(Catherine Deneuve). When she spontaneously appears turns out to be much more attractive than expected. He marries to Julia but she suddenly disappears.A French eye private(Michael Bouquet) is hired by Julia's sister and soon he's on the trail of his previous spouse. Later Louis encounters her in a dancing-hall under another name. In spite of the romantic delusion and everything, Louis goes on enamored with his enigmatic wife.

This film is a splendid drama plenty of betrayal,deception, killing, theft and Hitchcockian suspense. Good performances by Jean Paul Belmondo as young proprietary of a cigarette company who seems determined to fall under the spell of a femme fatale and a wonderful Catherine Deneuve as suspect heroine. The film gets several references to the American cinema, but Truffaut(400 blows) was a fervent moviegoer, such as : Johnny Guitar, Colorado Jim, Bogart, and Hitchcock.The USA version was cut numerous minutes and deserves an urgent restoring and remastering. Loosely based on the novel titled'Waltz into darkness' by Cornell Woolrich (Rear window and screenwriter of Alfred Hitchcock hour) who also was adapted in 'Truffaut's The bride wore black'.Colorful cinematography by Denys Clerval(Stolen kisses) and atmospheric musical score by Antoine Duhamel, Truffaut's usual musician.This is one of the best of his suspense movies along with ¨Farenheit 451 and Shoot the piano player¨. Remade by an inferior version by Michael Christofer(2001) with Antonio Banderas, Angelina Jolie and Jack Thompson, full of erotic and lust scenes.

In Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, the owner of a cigarette factory Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is engaged through correspondence with Julie Roussel and he does not know her. When Julie arrives in the island to get married with Louis, he waits for her in the docks but Louis does not recognize Julie in the passenger vessel and finds that she is totally different from the picture she had sent to Louis. They get married and Louis shares his bank accounts with her. When Julie's sister writes a letter to Louis asking her sister to write to her, Louis discovers that the woman is not Julie that is missing. Further, he finds that the woman has cleared his bank accounts and left the island. Louis and Julie's sister hire an efficient private detective Comolli (Michel Bouquet) and Louis travels to France seeking the woman, but he has a nervous breakdown in Nice and is submitted to an intense sleeping therapy in a clinic. He recovers and finds that the woman, actually Marion Vergano (Catherine Deneuve), works in the Phoenix Club Privé in Antibes and lives in the low-budget Monorail Hotel. Louis breaks in her room and when she arrives from the club, she tells that she was happy with him but her former dangerous lover Richard had blackmailed her. Louis is still in love with Marion and escapes with her to the countryside. But Comolli is chasing Marion in France accused of murdering Julie.

"La Sirène du Mississipi" is a film-noir by the great director/writer François Truffaut, with an unconventional love story of passion, murder and love that hurts. The femme fatale Catherine Deneuve is astonishing, probably in the top of her beauty and is delightful to see her face and the topless scenes on the road and in the room. Jean-Paul Belmondo is very athletic, and the sequence when he escalates the wall of the hotel is impressive. Catherine Deneuve makes this film worth and gives credibility to the passion and lust of Louis. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Sereia do Mississipi" ("The Mississippi Mermaid")

I am surprised that nobody has yet pointed out that the ending in the snow is an homage to Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion." The film is dedicated at the beginning to Renoir.

Jean Renoir was the great humanist director. For him, all that matters is how we treat human beings. The same here for Truffaut. The film tells us that it does not matter if you're rich or poor, male or female, upholding the law or fighting it, the only thing that matters is love. This is a romantic film that has occasional touches of a good mystery/detective/noir film. The Hitchcock film that it most reminded me of was "Marnie". There, like here, it is hard to know if crime or patient love will win out in the end.

I did not care much for the New Wave style editing, which seemed out of sync with the dramatic story at times. The many shots of Belmondo driving kept reminding me of the beginning of "Breathless." The color seemed a bit dull and washed out.

The locations are lovely, but Truffaut seems to have only one thing on his mind, the relationship between the lead characters, Louis and Juli/Marion. The characters and the audience think they know each other, but the film keeps fooling them and us. We are constantly getting new information that makes us re-evaluate who they are and they are constantly surprising each other. For example, Louis has been telling Juli/Marion how much he loves her and how beautiful she is and then suddenly he gets upset and tells her how there are many of her kind - she is not really a woman or a girl, but a "chick". The term "chick" is far more demeaning here then the term "bitch" or "slut" could ever have been. He tells her that her cold attitude actually makes her ugly. Watching the scene, one thinks about how easily and naturally men can degrade women, even women they love.

The film is a bit long and occasionally meanders, but it is emotionally intense at many points along the way. It seems that nothing is happening and then suddenly there's a surprise that makes you think, "Oh my goodness, I didn't expect that." It may not be one of Truffaut's best films, but second-rate Truffaut is still better than 90% of other directors' best stuff.