La camera verde

I totally disagree with Maltin. Truffaut's The Green Room was destined not to be a crowd pleaser: unlike his most famous films celebrating life (Jules and Jim being the most obvious example) the film is serious in tone and deals with death, Truffaut himself playing the death-obsessed newspaperman.

The Green Room is nonetheless a very impressive film; the questions of the forms of love, life versus death, possession and the remembrance of those who have passed away are treated both intellectually (but not in an 'artsy' or artificial way) and emotionally (but not in a melodramatic way despite an interwoven love story).

The film is surprisingly short and the ending comes even a bit abruptly, so contrary to possible expectations it is not long and dull. The Green Room reminded me of The Magnificent Ambersons and (John Huston's) The Dead, which are also films to be recommended.

Most reviews here are positive, and luckily so: this is a tremendous film. Thought provoking, even disturbing a bit. And wonderfully photographed by Maestro Nestor Almendros. The film simply looks stupendous !

What seems odd is that not one review here, against or for this film, mentions the mute child.

Is there significance to his part, other than to show that Julien Davenne cannot communicate with the world except in obituaries and in sign language ? It is hard to tell, but the role played by the blonde kid is quite poetic, and maybe for that reason alone an asset for this 'La Chambre Verte', which is as wonderful as it is unsettling.

Julien Davenne has suffered trauma, it still haunts him, he's perpetually a mourner, after losing his wife Julie, he still loves her oh so truly, leaves him trapped inside a tomb, can't turn the corner. Cecilia attempts to make a bond, there's connection, and slowly he does respond, after fire burns his tribute, to his perpetual love salute, she becomes someone, of which he is quite fond - but not for long.

It's not the most riveting period drama you've ever come across although, like The Story of Adele H, it shows how people with serious mental illness behaved when there was little or no support, or indeed appreciation for, in this case, PTSD. Nathalie Baye is gorgeous and elegant, and as such, shows just how much Julien Davenne has lost his marbles, but at least she gets to light his candle.

Francois Truffaut's wife died years ago, and he has since kept a shrine to her, a green room where he keeps her belongings, where he speaks to her. When he encounters Nathalie Baye, who seems to have a similar feeling about the dead, he can choose to be a man among the living, or build a chapel to the dead, to be completed with his own death.

Truffaut's adaptation of Henry James' "The Altar of the Dead" is a sere, underplayed movie about people who have given up on life in the aftermath of the First World War, and seek am excuse in the idealization of the dead. It's madness, but an attractively passive form of madness. Unfortunately, Truffaut, as great a director as he was, was not the actor to bring off this role.

I, too, have reached a stage in life when I know more dead people than living ones. I don't talk to them; they never shut up long enough to let me get in a word edgewise. But even these ghosts know that life is for the living.

Green Room, The (1978)

** (out of 4)

Truffaut plays a journalist still grieving the death of his wife nearly ten years after her passing. Her passing helped his obsession of death, which ends up making him a friend in an equally strange woman (Nathalie Baye) who also has her own interesting thoughts on the subject. As his obsession grows deeper, the man decides to buy a chapel and turn it into a sanctuary for his wife and other dead friends. This is an extremely bizarre film from Truffaut and while I'm still new to his work, this here is certainly the least entertaining of his films that I've seen. I think the entire film is just one real big mess that never really makes sense of what it's trying to do. I couldn't help but feel a tad bit lost as the movie never really seems clear as to what it's trying to say about death as both characters are pulling in opposite directions. I found their relationship to be extremely forced and completely make belief as not for a single second did I feel either one could care for the other. Another minor issue was the performance by Baye, which I thought was rather weak. The problem with this is that Truffaut was pretty good and the two just don't work very well together and in the end it hurts the film because not only does their relationship feel weak but it doesn't help that the actor is so many better than the partner. I'd be lying if I said I hated this movie because I really didn't. There just wasn't anything here that kept me overly entertained and in the end I was just too bored by the characters and screenplay.