Mississippi Mermaid (1969)

One of Truffaut's best...

I'm a huge fan of french new wave, especially Goddard and Truffaut- this is one of Truffaut's very best. Here he combines romance, passion, and suspense like no other director could. Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo have always given excellant performances, and this is no exception. Their intensity and chemistry together is amazing. January 7, 2008

Darkest Deneuve

I have not seen the DVD. I saw the classic Mermaid on its initial run in the theatres, and the impression continues to haunt me 30 years later. I attribute the impact almost entirely to Mlle Deneuve's diabolical portrait of an utterly lost soul. Of her massive cannon of femme noir performances (spanning nearly half a century), her brilliant, ongoing exhibition of the dark side of the "eternal feminine", none is quite as disturbing, as that of the icily vapid Julie, the heartless, mindless, psychotic and inevitably homocidal/suicidal 'substitute' mail order bride.

In the Mermaid, which followed Belle de Jour and Repulsion in forming the foundation of Deneuve's introduction to an international audience (she'd been making films in France since the tender age of 13), Deneuve's character approaches the sub-human, becomming a sort of cosmic "black-hole" into which her victims (male) are helplessly drawn in a haze romantic self-asserting ignorance, an archeology of a long-lost maenidic fury, or prehensile feminist epistemology, which, under the mature Truffaut's direction and Deneuve's characteristic restraint is played out in grave measures, a ponderous, agonizing, inexorable procession through a slough of despair to dissolution. If Mlle Deneuve et al. have succeeded in creating a character "rotton to her xx chromosone core", they have imparted something crucial about our humanity or lack thereof. For this reason, I rate the Mermaid not as merely good, but great, albeit uncomfortably great, which is perhaps why, it has always been consigned by critics to that dubious category of "flawed masterpieces". But it's worth the price, if for nothing more than to see Deneuve as a flaming redhead. February 8, 2004

Truffaut's best Hitchcock film

People who put a Lonely Heart's ad in the newspaper are often idealists: they try to put into a few words everything they are and expect. The exchange of letters is full of hope. Louis Mahe (Jean Paul Belmondo) is so affected by Julie Roussell's letters that he proposes to her. But not the expected pretty brunette come from board of the "Mississippi" but - Catherine Deneuve. And we know from the start that she is a marriage imposter and that a crime has taken place. She shows no interest in "Julie's" wardrobe (she does not even get her trunk open) and neglects her canary until it dies. But the most basic tricks of seduction (an open zipper) are sufficient to transform Louis into a pliable little dog. First: a joint bank account. And then, when Julie's sister draws attention to herself - the flight. With 27,850 millions of Louis' 28 million francs - she would have needed his signature for the entire sum.

Louis and Julie's sister engage a private detective (Michel Bouquet). Louis contrives to trace Marion (Deneuve's real name) in Antibes where she works as taxi-girl - her gangster-lover left her penniless, or rather centimeless. But Louis finds himself unable to kill her. She tells her story: Orphan. Precocious. Lesbian experiences. Many sugardaddies. Jail. And soon she leads him by the nose again. The detective turns out as sly as a fox and tenacious asa bloodhound. Louis and Marion bury his body in the cellar. Thy flee to Paris, where Louis discovers that Julie has a costly taste. She worships money like a deity. He sells his firm at a fraction of its value, but when the corpse of the detective is discovered ( a flood) they have to flee again - this time without the money. Life in a mountain lodge, together with a whining loser - Marion could think of a more cheerful life without this appendage...

A high point in the careers of everybody involved. Belmondo's self-deceit makes him nearly endearing. Deneuve looks beautiful in her wardrobe by Yves St. Laurent. Her performance is delightful. At first she fakes the fragile wifey - too timid to ask her husband for money, that's why the joint bank account is needed - but after she is exposed she sounds like Katharine Hepburn in the jail scene of BRINGING UP BABY. Truffaut directs with self-evident aplomb. The sixties were the only decade when european films were head and shoulders above american productions. After this film Truffaut was able to look his idol Alfred Hitchcock full in the face. January 3, 2004

Meeting Miss "Right"

This film involves the story of a man seeking his "perfect mate" by means of an ad she has placed in a newspaper. He lives on a lonely island in the Indian Ocean (Reunion, once a French colony) and the woman, played by Catherine Deneuve, is from Paris, supposedly. At first the two exchange a series of letters, so as to "get to know one another," and eventually the woman agrees to travel to Reunion to meet the man. He happens to be a wealthy tobacco farmer, and the owner of a cigarette factory, which makes him moderately wealthy. Upon meeting each other in person they appear somewhat uncomfortable with the circumstances, as if niether quite expected what they find. The woman seems to remember little from her correspondance. When sharing his experiences with business partners the man gets less-than-lukewarm responses from his close associates. Despite these peculiar circumstances and an absolute abscence of anything near intimacy the plans for a wedding go forward. Shortly afterward the woman's behavior becomes gradually more bizarre, until finally she disappears altogether, having taken the man's fortune with her. The man's pusuit for this woman, now his wife, follows. We learn he is pursuing more than just a thief; he pursues her as love-object as well, ending up in shady dance halls along the French Riviera, where she is working. Eventually the truth bocomes known, a kind of love between the two develops, and Catherine Deneuve's character as a victim just as much as a victimizer becomes known. All in all I do not think it is one of her best performances. Where the film succeeds at all is in it's underlying message for persons seeking fulfilling relationships by means of classified "personals." In this respect I think Truffaut was ahead of his time. April 27, 2003

DVD-production disaster

The story is entertaining enough, but there is not much joy from viewing this DVD. The problem is that the folks producing it apparently were trying to win the contest for the DVD having the world's squattest image. It is EXTREMELY letterboxed WITHIN a 16:9 widescreen format. Even your zoom function won't help you, because the producers moved the subtitles into the black-bar region (and the subtitles are about 2/3 the height of the image itself. The movie becomes simply uninvolving when you see low-resolution images on a thin ribbon across the screen. January 4, 2003

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