Domicile conjugal

Antoine works as a florist's assistant, in the courtyard of his house. Christine, his wife, a violin teacher, finds out she's pregnant. Amid unforeseen circumstances and arguments, Antoine gets involved with a woman, putting his marriage at risk.

From the saga of Antoine Doinel (Truffaut followed the fictional life of this character for 20 years), Bed & Board, the penultimate film in the collection, is the lightest and most entertaining, thus breaking the content of the previous ones, which were material for reflection in the character study and social situation at the time (from the late 60s to the late 80s).

Truffaut never told bad stories, and here is an example of a marriage, which, like so many others, reached the breaking point faster than previously thought, and need help to survive.

The chemistry between Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade is fabulous, with really good scenes and dialogues, even when the result is not as good as expected.

Antoine and Christine now happily married, though life can be quite tough they don't seem worried, selling flowers in the day, trying to make violin pay, and then a baby, to make it all a bit more hurried. A chance presents for Antoine to set sail, on a corporate ladder, the bottom marks the trail, meets a Japanese distraction, causes confusing attraction, it's not the baby that will cry and whine and wail.

The continuing trials and tribulations of Antoine Doinel, who continues to excavate sizable holes to fall in and then spend his time and energy escaping from. Not quite as engaging as Stolen Kisses but enjoyable and relatable nonetheless.

What does it mean to be married, like properly so? As someone who has been in a pretty terrific one for a lot of years, one of the key things is that you should try to, as corny as it may sound to some of you, be friends - nay, to be a best friend - and to actually be in a partnership where the affection has to keep moving to somewhere, even (especially even) if it doesn't feel like it is at times. In Bed and Board, Antoine Doinel has to reckon with what a marriage is and how, whether it's based from where he has been in a home life that was unstable and rather mean and cold on its better times, he can't keep the love and friendship consistent, and certainly not to the level Christine expects or deserves.

I think Bed and Board is most fascinating and involving because it is another part of the complicated saga of Doinel's life. You need that context for it to work so well, and on its own I wonder if it may have been more off putting or simply confusing when very late in the film, once Doinel has been found out by Christine that he's been cheating with a (can't believe I'm typing these words) less interesting Yoko Ono kind if character and has been in this affair for some time and it seems like his marriage may be on the rocks, he calls up Christine multiple times while at dinner with his would-be side squeeze to complain about how miserable he is and... it's almost like he needs permission for it to all be over, that he's OK and that it'll all work out.

Ill leave it to you to watch it to find that out. But suffice it to say this is on its own terms at times sort of equal parts mundane and entertaining in a completely off-beat and off-kilter way, such as the various interlopers and neighbors in the apartment complex where Antoine and Christine (a very engaging and excellent and can hold her own with Leaud level performer in Claude Jade) live together, and as well equal parts amusing and heartbreaking.

I mean, this is a movie where at one point Antoine breaks through a wall with an axe or sledgehammer like a more jokey Jack Torrance, and at another when Christine confronts Antoine with his infidelity (she finds it out because the Japanese lady has been leaving messages in roses which in a string of events I won't get into end up in the apartment and she sees them) by uh dressing up in Japanese garb and make up and wtf I laughed but I'm not sure why. Oh, and Jacques Tati makes a cameo as M Hulot getting on a train because Truffaut is I guess making a Hulot movie only Doinel is like far from that(?)

I love a good marriage drama or story on infidelity, and this absolutely has that if nothing else because this couple with Leaud and Jade are wonderful together, as they convey how each really in their own way is trying to make this marriage work, whether it's in those little moments in bed when it's time to turn off the lights (a particular tender moment involving her glasses is something that feels lived in like if Truffaut or his writers didn't take it from a real moment then the actors did), or when they do have their blow-out fights (that poor mattress).

Again, it's fascinating that this is the follow-up so soon after Stolen Kisses as it has sometimes the same light tone but other times manages to probe into the existential maybe-trauma exploration of 400 Blows, and eventually in the film it becomes clearer that the little things with Doinel, how he acts or reacts or closes up or looks at another person, is all about what HE is looking for or needs, while Christine has to just take it.

In other words, this is a good movie, at times really good, but it is contigent on if you've seen the other parts of what these people have gone through. As a tale of marriage it is both sweet and unfortunate, like biting into a bar of rich milk chocolate that has a sour patch kids middle, and one where Truffaut (because after all this is his and to an extent Leaud's alter ego) is self criticizing himself and men like them. And the filmmaker's idiosyncrasies make it linger and pop more than what you'd get with anyone else, though I can't help but feel the parts are greater than the whole here. Oh well, on to the last part!

No #4 in the Antoine series, five films beginning with 400 Blows, Antoine, the dreamer, has got himself a fine young wife, his opposite really, prim and well mannered. Their romantic first year is a series of funny neighbors and comical whimsy. I learned how to die the color of flowers, more interesting than one would think. I learned about hurrying a wife along by throwing her coat and bag down a stairway. I learned that relationships go wrong when one gives in to lust. Hey, I knew that.

Jean-Pierre Leaud has a physical resemblance to Truffaut. These episodic films, the ones in color that I have seen remind one of a HBO mini-series. His autobiographical Doinel is from a broken family. In the 400 blows, a masterpiece really of the New French Cinema in the late 50's, we see the lonely kid grasping for understanding. In subsequent films, we see the young adult Doinel grasp at relationship and career. The next beautiful woman is always around the corner. In Bread and Board, the femme fatale is 70's Japanese Go Go Chick, Hiroko Berghauer. Notice the heavy eye make-up on the women that make them look like zombies.

This is the fourth and penultimate film in Truffaut's semi-autobiographical series about the life of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud). The movie depicts Doinel in the early years of marriage to his childhood sweetheart Christine Darbon (Claude Jade). The picture begins showing Antoine trying to scrape a living selling dyed flowers in the busy Parisian courtyard while his wife teaches violin in the apartment above. If this film was a novel you could rip half the pages out to represent the amount of storyline in the picture. But this does not take away anything from this piece of cinematic magic. Truffauts use of the camera and soundtrack is as usual the making of the film.It is obvious that this film is a one-man creation. How many filmmakers could you say that of today? The balance of characters, incidents and minute side glance at daily living restores your faith that art and craftmanship is making a tender comment on life can make a deep one too. The couple soon become parents and Antoine lands, by pure chance, an unprestigious job in a prestigious American construction company. But Domestic bliss soon tires our hero and he is tempted to the bed of a statuesque Japenese girl. The story is told with Truffauts usual wit and charm and filled with affectionate homages to filmmakers from Jean Renoir to Jaques Tati.