The Soft Skin
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Movie Reviews of The Soft Skin
Movie Review: Paris is not for us!
Summary: 5 Stars
A successful businessman and affective husband meets an alluring airline stewardess in a flight to Lisboan. And as product of a kind invitation to dinner will emerge a torrid romance that will become an unstoppable passion, with the expected tragic consequences.
Truffaut uplifts this simple and so many times told before story to unexpected levels. The employment of the camera as a scrutinizing eye, makes we become true peeping Tom; the poetic of the images, the sublime visual eroticism in sequences of enraptured charm, the accurate use of the melancholic music, suggests and warns step by step by Hitchcokian paths, where the disturbed soul of this man never equals to the steeled determination of his lover. For her, that affair means much more than a random encounter; while his wife begins to suspect something's wrong among them.
Truffaut avoids to fall in the circumstantial anecdote, spicing of audacious narrative innovations, where the social conventions really have enmeshed this man and led him into a deep end, due his lack of self conviction and vital determination to admit the consequences once he crossed the line.
One of the main factors that nourish the narrative vigor of the film, resides in the theatrical influence (Jean Anouilh and William Shakespeare) smartly bounded with suspenseful moments that conform an outstanding and original proposal.
In fact, forty three years have elapsed since this movie was released and (with some little details here and there) the narration has not aged a bit.
And although I am not a twenty four hours hard fan of Truffaut, I have to acknowledge we are in presence of one of his best artistic achievements of his prestigious career.
Inquire and then convince by yourself. "La peau doce" is a sumptuous masterpiece!
Movie Review: DON'T FOOL WITH WOMEN
Summary: 5 Stars
Fourth movie of François Truffaut, THE SOFT SKIN is altogether a drama, a melodrama and a comedy. And it's easily one of the best films of the french director. Let's note that, in 1964, it was the third Truffaut movie in a row that ended with a brutal murder. So we have to forget the still well alive cliché presenting François Truffaut as the gentle and peaceful observer of the 1960 french society. His movies and particularly THE SOFT SKIN can be very cruel and can touch you at the bottom of your heart, where it hurts the most.Shot in black & white, like the films noirs he loved so much, THE SOFT SKIN describes a moment in the life of Jean Desailly, a publisher and a lecturer, who cannot choose between his wife and Françoise Dorléac, a young and beautiful airline stewardess. Basic plot but treated with the Truffaut touch.
Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's sister, who tragically disappeared in 1967, gives here a superb performance that can only give eternal regrets to movie lovers. Jean Desailly is perfect in the role of an ordinary man with his weaknesses and his simple desire for happiness.
Some problems with the images : sometimes they stand still for seconds and the words suddenly are not in harmony anymore with the movement of the lips of the characters. Seven or eight trailers of Truffaut's movies available in the DVD standard.
A DVD for your library.
Movie Review: One of Truffaut's Best
Summary: 4 Stars
You would think the names Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut have little in common, but, for some unexplainable reason Truffaut adored the films of Hitchcock. Now, don't get me wrong, Hitchcock was a great filmmaker. I love watching "Rear Window" and "Psycho" and all of his other films, but, Truffaut, doesn't seem to be the same "league" as Hitchcock. And what I mean by that is, they both seemed to explore different things in their films."The Soft Skin" finds Truffaut once again in Hitchcock mode, like "Confidentially Yours", Truffaut's final film. "The Soft Skin" is a wonderful entertaining film that doesn't let up for a moment. It has suspense and laughs. The film stars the beautiful late Francoise Dorleac (Catherine Deneuve's older sister) and Jean Desailly. Desailly plays Pierre Lachenay a well known writer who finds himself having an affair with Dorleac. But can we blame him? lol. Lachenay is now left with a serious problem, what about his wife. Can he go through with the affair and do this to his wife? Or should he call it off and never see the woman again? The way Trauffaut examines this is in a way Hitchcock would of been proud.
The film has a nice look to it, and a good musical score. And because it's a Truffaut film, the directing is great! If your a Truffaut fan, you'll love this film. If your not a Truffaut fan. I'd wait a while before I see this one. A very enjoyable film.
Movie Review: Truffaut's soft touch
Summary: 4 Stars
La Peau Douce/The Soft Skin is a very pleasant surprise indeed. There's a tendency in much of Truffauts' later work to be over-literate, often throwing in narration that plays more like a prose recital than thought or dialog to convey what he should be doing without it, but there's none of that here. Instead, its illicit romance is told in purely cinematic terms and telling details and, despite the potentially hackneyed material, plays beautifully, whether its the title sequence of two hands caressing in the darkness, a mix-up with room keys as a prelude to seduction or the kitten and the breakfast tray that would make such a memorable comeback in Day for Night.
There's humor and humanity there too, and the hero's painful fallibility on his disastrous dirty weekend in Reihms is one of the great don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-to-cry moments. The ending seems a bit contrived and unlikely despite being based on an actual incident, but he somehow manages to pull that off too.
Sadly, while the UK DVD includes an excellent commentary from co-writer Jean-Louis Richard and archive interviews with Truffaut and Francois Dorleac, this R1 disc comes only with trailers for various truffaut titles.
Movie Review: Keeps you simultaneously glued to the narrative and fearful of the outcome.
Summary: 4 Stars
Both intriguing and frustrating - the latter because you want to reach into the screen and slap the protagonist on the side of the head. The plot seems to go mostly nowhere, yet is thoroughly engrossing. Character development is not thorough, but situational development is both thorough and meticulous. A great psychological exposition. Unfortunately, almost no extras.