Truffaut's pseudo-autobiographical romantic comedy concerns a man who, at least outwardly, has no particularly exceptional qualities. And yet his persistence, frankness, and attentiveness to the physical attributes of the various women he encounters--played by Fossey, Natalie Baye, and Nelly Borgeaud--result in his becoming a rather roguish ladies' man. Denner--unsmiling, helplessly leering, yet somehow charming--was a perfect choice for the role, and there's a lot more to the story than conquest. As Bertrand writes about his life, he discovers dissatisfaction at the heart of his enterprise, a revelation Truffaut turns into bittersweet irony. For a witty take on the frustrations of love, hang with "The Man Who Loved Women."
July 5, 2007The adventures of a womanizer in France. There are many interesting elements here, some too subtle, about human nature. How women fall for him so quickly. When he asks them something it's like his life depended on it, and they can't refuse. They love to be desired with such intensity, however short that relation will last. And he goes from one to another; every woman has something different that no other woman has, and he wants them all. He can't settle with one.
It's all very funny, but at the same time it makes one think of a great void that nothing and nobody can fill. It may be women, or anything else; but there is never enough of it to fill that void.
The film is a bit too long (2 hours,) and has its ups and downs, but overall is a good entertainment.
March 23, 2007All I can say is ... great! But do NOT see this film with a date ... or even your wife! Most women I've known don't get the poignance of the hero's obsession ... not at all!
March 19, 2006Somehow it's difficult to say anything useful about this film. It is so well made, so well told, that it leaves me merely with a sense of completeness. There is no real "plot", and it is senseless to give a pedestrian outline of what does or does not happen. I must have seen it when it came out, perhaps about 1977, and have not been able to forget it. It is, somehow, a perfectly made presentation of one man's life: insignificant yet universal, simultaneously realistic, surrealistic, artistic, fantastic, true yet imaginative. I was staggered to see that an apparently bone-headed remake by Blake Edwards, a clumsy and insensitive film-maker --- think of what a misuse of Peter Sellers' talents the Pink Panther series was! --- had attempted either to spoof it, or to exploit it. Well, I haven't seen his remake, but I can imagine it as the crudest possible American bludgeoning of French finesse. This masterpiece by Truffaut is an utterly fascinating account of the enigma of the male-female human relationship --- far, far superior in its own terms to anything produced in the English-speaking world.
March 16, 2005Only a director's with TRUFFAUT's sensibility could actually manage to make an interesting movie with a subject like this.BERTRAND MORANE, the character like his creator had plenty of women in his life.Read the biography written by ANTOINE De BAECQUE for details.This film can be considered as his last personnal film, even if it is not related to the DOINEL series.It is not surprizing that TRUFFAUT likes the voice off device which reached it's zenith with TWO ENGLISH GIRLS and SUCH A GEORGEOUS KID LIKE ME.His ironic nature almost commands such a device.THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN is a medium TRUFFAUT ,worth seeing as a funny explorations of his themes.You can actually see the director rapidly passing by at the beginning of the movie.I would have liked BRIGITTE FOSSEY's character more fully developped.To resume TRUFFAUT in a simple way,one can say that he often created strong women characters over weak men who are often survivors or victims.But nothing is never that simple...
January 25, 2005More reviews at Amazon.com ...
Daily Birthdays
(13 reviews)
