L'amour avec des si

First thing to bear in mind is that,although labelled "nouvelle vague" when he began,Claude Lelouch actually hated this school "which killed all the directors I liked" .

This one may sound "nouvelle vague" ,but ,fortunately it does not concern young people contemplating their navels ,soul-searching....and no "deep" , "meaningful "but empty sentences either .instead ,the viewer rejoices in the presence of tongue-in -cheek conversations or broadcasts .

"L'Amour Avec Des Si" is a very intriguing work ,much better than Lelouch's interminable pretentious blockbusters: his sense of humor which would emerge again in entertaining comedies such as "le voyou" or "la bonne année" , is present in the riotously funny scene of the restaurant ;his disgust for death penalty would be the subject of one of his best efforts "la vie l'amour la mort" .

A sex maniac -whose responsible for many rapes , women and child abuse - escapes from jail ,steals a car and heads for the snowed up of Normandy ; he gives a lift to a hitch-hiker ,a naive young girl who "does not believe in rapes,it's only in the movies or in the novels ".What will become of her in the hands of such a monster? The man reveals himself considering ,tender, romantic and gallant :only a façade?

The movie is intertwined with cinema verite interviews in the street (a process Lelouch would resume in "vivre pour vivre" ) by Jacques Martin : many persons are asked about their thoughts about rape : the average man (and mostly woman) ; the general opinion adds up to a consensus that well... Men can be monsters but women are sometimes teasers.A second cinema verite live commentary about a miners strike is downright unseemly :social concern has never been Lelouch's forte.

In many a thriller ,the unexpected end has now become de rigueur.Here ,Lelouch double -jumped his future contenders by giving the viewer TWO unexpected ends (and even three ,if we consider the hero's last sentence)

Lelouch says that this is his third film, made at the point where he considered giving up, after two failures. Only the accident of it being sent to a festival in Stockholm where it was hailed by Ingmar Bergman kept him at it.

It is a piece of passable interest. The performances are self conscious and the cut price handling shows but it retains attention for showing it's director to be a co-conspirator with the Nouvelle Vague, complete with sustained car driving shots and a departure from conventional film form. Token plot concerns the police search for an escaped crazy.

It is not hard to see the director of Chat et Le Souris, Rendez Vous and Il y a des jours... et des lunes at work here.