Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà

Twenty years after their affair, the promoter of the Paris-Dakar race Jean-Louis Duroc (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is called by the producer Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimée) to Paris. After producing a movie that was a complete failure in audience, Anne intends to make a movie about their love. Meanwhile, a serial killer escapes from the hospital, and is found dead, together with the wife of his doctor. "Un Homme et Une Femme" is a delightful and charming classic romantic movie. Unfortunately, director Claude Lelouche decided to make this sequel, using the same cast, twenty years later. I do not dare to say that "Un Homme et Une Femme, 20 Ans Déjà" is a bad movie. However, it kills, for example, the magnificent open end of the original movie, showing what has happened with Jean-Louis Duroc and Anne Gauthier along twenty years. Further, there is a parallel story, and many sub-plots that are completely out of the context, mixing a romantic story with a thriller and a drama. Jean-Louis Trintignant aged too much, and Anouk Aimée is still very beautiful and elegant, but the wonderful chemistry between them is completely lost. My vote is seven because there are some good points, mainly the filming of the romance of Anne and Jean-Louis, like a movie-in-a-movie.

Title (Brazil): "Um Homem. Um Mulher: 20 Anos Depois" ("A Man. A Woman: 20 Years Later")

Often it goes like this - big love come into existence and it is unshared. Often it goes also like this - the feelings between (at least) two lovers are not the same and start at a different point.

People say that is harder for the man to live through separation rather than a woman. He felt it in the beginning weakly but with time the lack becomes a pain and the pain - in crisis. It was absolutely opposite for the woman. In the beginning she felt awfully but with time compared to man she got on her feet in searching another rogue.

For good or for bad this movie makes this stereotype in pieces by showing the more realistic variant of a such possible experience. Was it because of the refinement of a cinema woman and (surprisingly) of a race driver or it was because of the soberness of the producer - this is what I do not know - but the movie was very real, charming, romantic till its end. Was it because of the samba of Vinicius or because the love of a blond - this is what I do not know.

Both protagonists, step back in front of the ambition to take main role in life, find equal language which lead them to the natural end of such adventure. But right then, the feelings which run through us, guiding us as we are their marionettes take part; the feelings of which we are slaves. With them the expected end becomes hard to be predicted.

What about twenty years later? Who knows? Who knows where will lead us our life path. Will it make clear our desires or will present to us new ones. In every case such a try to predict this end grows pale in front of the present intensity of sensual forgetfulness and dottiness but stays very good model of thinking plots, real or not.

http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

Hi just greetings.. I was born in 2002, and it is amazing to see how time flickers... hope all reviewers have a good life.

Sometimes Claude Lelouch makes good films or masterpieces, sometimes not at all.

This sequel of "Un homme et une femme" is useless. It's not a bad movie in itself, because it's well acted, well made and very refined -high quality is a trademark in Lelouch movies. That's why I give 4 stars out of 10...

But it's a useless project. Was it necessary to go back to the story and spoil the original picture? The 1966 film is very simple -it's a masterpiece because of that. There are only Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, the chemistry is incredible. The film is really poetic, we don't want to know how their love story goes on.

In the 1986 sequel we find them 20 years later -Lelouch tells us what they have become and how they meet again. There are other characters and facts which intersect with them.

As I said not a really bad movie, but it doesn't stand comparison at all with the original. It would have been better not to produce it.

The movie begins badly, with some racing scenes that go on for so long you may start thinking you're watching a James Bond flick. Then it wastes some more time by following the characters in their everyday activities, which are of little interest. But when the couple from "A Man And A Woman' is finally reunited, Lelouch shows that he still hasn't lost his touch when it comes to quiet dialogue scenes, in which expressions speak as loudly as words. And the idea of filming a movie ABOUT the story we saw in the first movie makes for an intriguing re-examination of the original from an unusual perspective - the perspective of the fictional character who starred in it. But Lelouch still can't stay concentrated on the things that really matter, and even when he later introduces a new, completely unexpected story thread (the "adventure" in the desert), he keeps intercutting it with another film-within-a-film, which is boring and pointless. The final impression is that of a film with many good things in it, but also a whole lot of flaws. (**1/2)