L'amour en fuite

The spontaneous character Antoine Doinel, continues his journey through his show and tell, divorced from Christine, shacked up with Sabine, pursues long past fancies, but things don't quite gel.

We continue to observe the trials and tribulations that life presents to the often frustrated Antoine, with multiple flashbacks to previous presentations forming a significant part of the piece, you really need to be a fan of the series in order to appreciate the journey, the saga, the voyage, of the boy become man but still a boy. There's a good chance you can pick out numerous events that may align with your own passage, or from someone you know, which may escalate your appreciation. While an enjoyable piece, it does seem to have run its course, and left with more of a whimper than a whoop.

Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is having a love affair with the vinyl seller Colette Tazzi (Marie-France Pisier). After five years of a troubled marriage with separations, Antoine and Christine Doinel (Claude Jade) have a private audience with the judge (Marie Henriau) and conclude an amicable divorce process. His former sweetheart and presently lawyer Colette Tazzi (Marie-France Pisier) sees Antoine leaving the court and she goes to a bookstore to buy his autobiographical novel that was published a couple of years ago. When Antoine goes with Alphonse (Julien Dubois) to the train station for the travel vacation of his son, he sees Colette in another train and he jumps from the platform to the train and travels with her. They recall their adolescent love and disclose their sentimental relationships; but when Colette tells how she raises money for her self-support, Antoine is disappointed and seeks out Sabine.

"L'Amour en Fuite" is the conclusion of the sentimental saga of the character Antoine Doinel, the insecure alter ego of François Truffaut that began in "Les Quatre Cents Coups" and followed through "L'Amour à Vingt Ans", "Baisers Volés" and "Domicile Conjugal", inclusive with the use of scenes in the many flashbacks of these movies with his recollections and troubled love affairs. This character has an evolution from the needy fourteen years old boy rejected by his mother and his stepfather in the first movie. The lack of affection at home makes him a rebel, bad student, liar, reckless and a thief stealing objects and money at home in his adolescence. In the next movies, he grows-up, but with a fragile emotional structure and the viewer sees an unstable man incapable of having a steady relationship or commitment with the many beautiful women that he meets along his futile life. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Amor em Fuga" ("The Love on the Run")

This is Antoine Doinel's goodbye to all of us who followed his life and experiences through 20 years, from "The 400 Blows", "Antoine &t Colette", "Stolen Kisses" to "Bed & Board" and finally here in "Love on the Run"; from his problems at school to his life as a working man, married man, later divorced, reader, writer, lover, soldier, florist, private detective and more; in short a full life. Truffaut's alter ego (always played by the amazing Jean-Pierre Léaud) takes us through many moments of his life in the previous films while trying to correct few things in the present with his latest girl, Sabine (Dorothée).

Here, all the women of Doinel's life appears together and now he has a chance to figure out why his relationships simply doesn't work. Recently divorced of Christine (Claude Jade), and involved with no good terms with Sabine, Doinel meets again Colette (Marie-France Pisier), his first love and they share some secrets, remember some moments when they two met for the first time, and both characters discover more things about each other, about life and about love.

At the trivia section is mentioned that Truffaut thought about making a huge mistake while filming this sequel, and I think he shouldn't be ashamed of it. It isn't much of a film since half of it it's flashbacks taken from all of Doinel's films plus a few moments of "Le Nuit Americaine" included as an interesting subplot of Doinel's romantic affairs (even though he plays a different character in that film). Compared to the other movies of the series this is less comical, a little bit too serious and it's more focused on how the kid that seems to never grow finally realizes what love really is than his amusing and funny life experiences as a working man.

But seeing all the flashbacks, those memorable moments covering 20 years of a person is breathtaking, refreshing, unique in all motion picture history. We can look back and see how much Antoine/Léaud changed through these years and some of us practically saw him growing up and I bet Truffaut must have loved this experience, seeing someone he could relate with and share some of his own experiences and see them portrayed on screen. One of the most touching moments of "Love on the Run" is the reunion between Doinel and the lover of his mother, whom he haven't seen in years, and the way they talk about the past, we see scenes from "The 400 Blows" when Doinel was a kid and saw him with his mother, and he hated the guy for it, then few years later they are happy to see each other, a bond between Doinel's troubled life and his life while a grown up man.

Most of the reviews on this classic are very superficial here. "Love on the Run" is a memorable, delightful and magic experience through great moments of one of the most interesting, inspiring and charming characters of all time, and this is his goodbye to us, always striving, always fighting, always believing in something and always managing to get what he wants even though we as audience might think he'll be lost forever. Doinel echoes a part of us that never should die: our youth. 10/10

True, there are a bit too much flash back in the film (with some lengthy ones,too), but after the previous four Antoine Doinel films, this last installment brings so much sentiment and feeling that is quite unique and unmatched in any other films. Whether Antoine's life will change or not, nobody can tell. The important thing is, he has to face the reality this time. He's no longer young, plus he's a divorced father and struggling writer (what a combination!). Yet as all the people around him changed, Antoine still has the child-like energy and belief in love. That's what makes him so attractive as a protagonist in FIVE films. Truffaut really gave us film lovers a great gift. Too bad that he died in 1984, or we might have a 6th or 7th film on Antoine Doinel!

By finding an opportunity to firmly end his cycle of films about Antoine Doinel, Francois Truffaut gave himself a great advantage by permitting this film to go to any lengths necessary as long as it concludes the series, which has essentially been represented as a number of chapters portraying the lives of one unusual Parisian man.

In The 400 Blows, Antoine struggled with finding his place in the world as an adolescent and the relationship with his parents. In Antoine and Colette he found the pitfalls associated with love, a trend that would continue in Stolen Kisses and Bed and Board. Love on the Run is brilliantly done in the way that it incorporates all of these details via flashbacks and sequences designed to remind the audience of characters seen in previous films. Truffaut carefully edits these scenes in such a way as to appear as nostalgic memories as well as to aid along the audience in understanding the reasons and consequences of these characters' actions.

Once again, this story focuses mainly on Antoine's ability (or inability) to have a relationship with a woman only for nearly everything to go wrong. Truffaut wisely brought back the two most important women to Antoine, his wife of 5 years Christine and his first great love from his teen years Colette. Scenes between the two women are particularly well-done as we get a glimpse into some real soul-searching for this complex character. Antoine also has a new woman in his life, the charming and bubbly Sabine who plays a most important role in this story that also manages to include subplots involving Antoine's relationship to his parents and a bit of detective work reminiscent of that beautiful film, Stolen Kisses. Clearly, this entire series is one of the best in cinema history. By focusing on one man and all the adventures and problems he must face, Truffaut has created some of the most realistic and indelible fictional characters in all of art. In some ways, these people are more real than the ones we know for they combine knowledge, understanding and wisdom learned in the past as well as hope and courage for the future. All great things must come to an end and this ending is as perfect as films get: funny, poignant and so warm and tender. To understand why Truffaut was such a special artist, look no further than these five chapters depicting the life of Antoine Doinel.