In the fourth full-length film about Duanel, Truffaut creates a new genre of cinema - philosophical comedy, because light love stories of the whole cycle form a bizarre vital pattern here, and the new material is mixed with episodes from all the films of the series, including the short film Antoine and Colette, which we did not disassemble because of its duration. This is done by the director not at all for saving time, but to emphasize that nothing in Doinel’s life changes, the former women return but new turns of fate, everyone becomes older, but not Antoine. It seems to be a well-bred young man who loves literature and cinema, falling in love, as he himself admits, not only with the girl, but also with her whole family, and therefore liked by the parents of all his girls without exception, Doanel desperately cannot find himself, gets confused, in a hurry, does not have time.
He constantly changes his job, twists affairs, even gets married and has a child, but all this does not prevent him from glide easily and irresponsibly through life, like the hero of Kundera from The Unbearable Lightness of Being. This comparison is not accidental, since both heroes belong to the same generation, for whom personal and social obligations seemed so burdensome that their representatives decided not to have them at all. The really difficult childhood of Antoine, depicted in the Four Hundred Strikes, the rebellion against the adult world, the indifference of parents, the sticky discipline at school during his external maturation gave bizarre fruits. Doinel became a bourgeois, even wrote a novel (called, indicatively, “Lovely confusion”), but this did not bring happiness either to him or to his women.
A delightful scene in “Escaped Love” was a conversation between Christina and Colette, in which they are without offense to fate and Antoine remember their common life with him. It is significant that Truffaut begins the last film of the cycle from the scene of the divorce of Antoine and Christina: to create a family still failed, in this sense, “Family hearth” still contained beautiful amorous illusions, which in “Eliminary love” is no longer. The picture begins with a song by Alain Souchon, written specifically for her, and ends with it (yes, this is the same singer, the lines from another song of which Begbeder took one of the epigraphs for “99 francs”). The song very well conveys the mood of the whole film - a kind of wise sadness about the vicissitudes of life, sadness about what we turn it into when we easily soar through it.
Neither the director nor the women of Antoine condemn him and do not resent him (one of them is more beautiful than the other, but all overshadowed by one Dorothy in the role of Sabine, the last, at least for now, of Doinel's love). The fate of the hero Leo is very similar to the life of the character of another Truffaut film - "The Man Who Loved Women", which we do not consider here, so as not to repeat. There, the bright womanizer spent all his time on seduction, as well as Doinel flitted through life, however, he did not leave behind a child or an affair. Of course, the hero of the Truffaut cycle is not so deep, which is why his connections with women are easy and not burdensome, none of them grows into passion, and therefore does not entail tragic consequences. Doinel is difficult to imagine the character of “Tender Skin” or “Neighbors”.
However, it’s not even that he never grew up, because Alexander in “Mother and the girl” is also infantile, however, this leads to tragedy. Antoine didn’t just like the parents of his girlfriends, he is a really good guy who can’t even hurt anyone with his cheating. That is why the genre in which stories about him are told is not a tragedy, and not even a melodrama (recall that the same Renee in the film of the same name saw almost Shakespearean passions), but a funny and easy comedy, albeit philosophical. Antoine Doinel is Dorian Gray, who never met his Henry Wharton.
François Truffaut completes the adventures of Antoine Doinel, allowing him to be seen from the outside in Escaped Love. Complex growing up was accompanied by conflicts, re-education, numerous relationships with different girls. In the previous installment of Family Home, we see where Antoine and Christine came to begin the story with consequences and prioritization. The family drama is accompanied by the fatigue of both partners, despite the candid footage of the grown-up Jean-Pierre Leo, before us still that naive and adventure-seeking person.
Family, child, divorce. Truffaut touches on the impermanence of the protagonist, who cannot stand in one place. We see that Antoine does not give meaning to what is happening. The director introduced Doinel as the author of his own life: the character wrote an autobiographical story. The constant flashbacks of "400 Blows," "Lost Kisses," "Antoine and Colette," "Family Home" are all over the place, and you know we have a climax.
The tape cuts down on the hunt for girls in time to look at all his women from under the lines of the novel. But some grammar record saleswoman Sabine is taking over our hero after all. It could have been a beautiful love story. Composing a photo of a girl from scraps, searching for a stranger in Paris, falling in love and attraction. If the tape was not a cycle about Antoine, it would be better, and here the reflection of Truffaut with his main character.
Therefore, the picture affects both Colette and Christine, and throws new details that remain behind the scenes of the tapes, but are included in the biography of Doinel. A beautiful image of fantasies, combined with flashbacks, allow you to see that Antoine has not changed, that he craves attention and affection, but at the slightest sign of responsibility, escapes. A candid conversation with Christine reveals that the passion is gone; Christine's confessions of what attracted her to Antoine; the unexpected appearance of a girl from the past - Lillian. This all slides down on the audience, as new and unknown, and among the frames of past films, it is sometimes difficult to navigate where the director leads.
A tape built on nostalgia and a look into the past. But most of all, it is remarkable that now the girls who appeared in Doinel’s life in all past paintings intersect, confess to each other and find common ground in each other – Antoine left all the scars. And now we remember this naive and quiet character, who by pure chance always found himself in bed with someone.
This is the magic of the image, created by Truffaut on the example of a French boy. “Eliminary Love” is a tribute to the previous films about Antoine, but, at the same time, she can not boast of a completely re-educated character. We see the finale and understand that Duanel is what he is, only age changes. But thanks to additional shots, François Truffaut completes the story of Antoine’s mother, his wife, and his first love, and second love. So in the end what? To throw him into the arms of another young girl. It is strange that the director did not include in this retelling of previous films also the wife of the owner of the shoe store – Fabienne.
In general, the cycle of stories about Antoine is a cult phenomenon, representative of the French new wave in cinema.
I decided to watch a series of films by François Truffaut about Antoine Doinel, the last film is called “Eliminary Love”, 1979. Antoine is already over 30, he works as a proofreader in a printing house, his book has already been published, he broke up with his wife and finally gets divorced, he has a new girlfriend, with whom, however, everything is not very smooth yet. There are also some characters from the past. It seemed to me that Truffaut did not have very smooth things with this film, otherwise it can be explained by the presence in it of so many frames from all previous films of the series and not only from them, and some episodes are repeated even in this film. Of course, people indulge in memories, so the easiest director as such was to use shots from already shot films, especially since the characters are still the same, but it still looks a little strange. However, the film was not without interest, after all, Truffaut is Truffaut, even in this version.
Nine years have passed since the release of the Family Home. During this period, you can do a lot of things: conquer the world with your book, fall in love once and for all, become happy. .
At the age of thirty, Antoine only managed to get a divorce after five long years of endless quarrels and have another mistress. In the opinion of the few friends, Doanel has never changed. Still always somewhere and for some reason runs, all the same changes profession.
In the last film of the series about Antoine Truffaut sums up a huge part of his life. It turns out very pointy, thanks to such a banal thing as flashbacks. We are shown moments from previous tapes and it works very, very hard.
Elsewhere, Escaped Love is a reasoning film, the most mature film of the entire series. Even if Antoine in his "just over thirty" remains a child with irrepressible energy. He gets here and there in comic situations. But “Escaped Love” seems to me almost sadder than “Four Hundred Blows”.
You don't have to change to love. You just have to admit it.
Escaped Love is a film about people who feel differently. The focus is on the charming writer Antoine Doinel and the three main women in his life.
Through short but vivid excerpts of the past or, as they say now, flashbacks, we learn about the story of Antoine and his wife Christine (to confess, the most impressive of all the chosen writers). Christine, in her own words, was not ambitious, so, having broken with Doinelle, she could still recognize the remaining feelings for her husband and succumb to his whims.
On clean water brings Antoine his former lover Colette – intelligent, brave and straightforward girl. In conversation, she denounces the selfishness and indifference of the writer, which he tries to pass off as modesty and tact.
Sabine - the current girlfriend of Duanel - tries to put up with his throwing in search of the unknown, but realizing that she is not ready to love and not be loved, decides to bring the relationship to naught.
The trouble is that the girls surrounding the main character were capable of self-sacrifice, unlike Antoine himself, who put his partly autobiographical novel above feelings and generally believed that “legalized” reciprocity is doomed to agony and rupture. “You become a true writer if you can create a story that is purely a figment of your imagination,” Colette tells Antoine. Doinel agrees and tells her about his new idea, but is it so invented, as Colette wants?
Until the last I thought that the main character deserves loneliness, but the denouement softened my mood. One of Doinel's mistresses said, "He had a difficult childhood, but that doesn't mean everyone has to pay for him." Yes, Antoine’s mother taught him that love is the most important thing in life, but with her many lovers, she wrongly formed the definition of love in the young Antoine. However, in order not to lose Sabine, the writer will have to admit his feelings and prove their sincerity.
10 out of 10
The final film from the series of films about Antoine Doinel, started by the epochal film "Four hundred strokes" - "Escaped love" as if sums up a certain line, sums up all the life conclusions of the main character.
Antoine is already in his thirties, he works in a publishing house, he published an autobiographical novel about his childhood and youth. Doinel divorces Christine, and their divorce becomes the first in France committed by voluntary consent of both parties. Antoine is in love again, this time with a young bookstore saleswoman.
Doinel is the age of summing up the first life results, and random coincidences and unexpected encounters throughout the film take him back to the past.
For greater clarity, the picture is made as a mosaic: new adventures of Duanel are interspersed with scenes from previous films about him, as well as from Truffaut’s films, seemingly unrelated to Doinel, such as “The Man Who Loved Women”, “American Night”. The theme of going back to the past and coming to terms with it in order to be able to start over is a recurring theme in this film. Antoine meets his mother’s ex-lover, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years and who has died by then. They visit the cemetery where she is buried, and Doinel hears a story about her. For the first time, he realizes his kinship to his mother and his inner similarity to her. And, perhaps, at this moment, he forever parted with the ghosts of childhood resentment.
Escaped Love is about the impermanence of love and the transience of life and about accepting it as it is. Nothing in life is permanent, but people are looking for love and happiness over and over again. This picture is the most lyrical of all the films about Doinel. Truffaut, with her strong, emotional and bright finale, very successfully completed his Duanel cycle.
