One man and one woman (1966)

Directed by: Claude Lelouch | 102 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Anouk Aimée, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Barouh, Valérie Lagrange, Antoine Sire, Souad Amidou, Henri Chemin, Yane Barry, Paul Le Person, Simone Paris, Gérard Sire

‘Un homme et une femme’ is about two people who lost their life partners at a young age. Both the man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and the woman (Anouk Aimée) were left with a child full of grief, but because of work, these children largely stay at a boarding school. Once, at most twice a week, the children are visited by their parents and it is that boarding school in Deauville where the meeting between the two main characters takes place. Anne has missed her train and the headmistress of the boarding school just manages to stop Jean-Louis as he drives off the premises. Can’t Anne ride with him to Paris?

No sooner said than done, in this sixties classic by the legendary French director Claude Lelouch (1937). Lelouch had been building his way for a while, but this romantic film shot his career into the air. Not only did he win the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, he also won two Oscars for this film: best foreign film and best screenplay. Anouk Aimée’s talent also did not go unnoticed: she lost the Oscar from Elizabeth Taylor (for ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’), but she did receive a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her sensitive role of Anne Gauthier.

Jean-Louis and Anne slowly get to know each other during the car ride and the viewer also gains a little insight into the life history of these attractive single parents. The ride continues and continues and it is clear that the two are very attracted to each other, but still a barrier remains. For example, it takes a while for them to admit to each other that the partners they are talking about are no longer alive.

At first sight, ‘Un homme et une femme’ tells a superficial story, no more than a ‘boy meets girl story’, but because of the background of the characters, the unprocessed grief, the worries about their children, nothing of that misery to get along, it is more than that. It’s also nice to see how differently the two deal with their loss; while Jean-Louis already seems a bit further in the process of coping, or seems to run away from it, you have the idea that Anne is still clinging to it and you get the impression that she doesn’t even want to go any further. It is therefore surprising how their relationship develops.

Lelouch’s film is clearly a product of the sixties: the Nouvelle Vague just behind it. Lelouch uses different techniques: flashbacks, loud music that drowns out the dialogues (the well-known “dabadabada”) and the fragments recorded inside are in sepia/black/white, the outside recordings are in color (allegedly this was a cost issue).

In 1986 ‘Un homme et une femme’ got a sequel: ‘Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà’, but that flopped. In 2019, the director released ‘Les plus belles années d’une vie’, the second sequel to his biggest hit. The main actors returned, making this trilogy somewhat reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ films.

‘Un homme et une femme’ is somewhere between romantic kitsch and a solid French classic. Watch it for the two wonderful actors and the craftsmanship behind the camera, which certainly left a mark on later films.