Der Mann, der die Frauen liebte (1977)

Der Mann, der die Frauen liebte: Directed by François Truffaut. With Charles Denner, Brigitte Fossey, Nelly Borgeaud, Geneviève Fontanel. Bertrand Morane’s burial is attended by all the women the forty-year-old engineer loved. We then flash back to Bertrand’s life and love affairs, told by himself while writing an autobiographical novel. A film about romantic relationships, the need to charm, and the literary creation.

“This movie is just wonderful, a kind of masterpiece as for its construction, its dialogues and the actorsu0026#39; performances. The first image sets the scene very clearly : Bertrand Moraneu0026#39;s burial attended only by women. No guys in the funeral procession. Twenty or so lovely middle-aged females are following their (former) loveru0026#39;s last trip. One of them, Brigitte Fossey, Bertrandu0026#39;s last girlfriend, comments, from backstage, on this unusual situation and explains, incidentally, what the film u0026#39;s gonna be : a flashback to Bertrandu0026#39;s life. How does she happen to know about it ? Thanks to Bertrandu0026#39;s book she has recently edited for him and called u0026quot;The man who loved womenu0026quot; (passed tense works here as a premonition). The author describes his passion for women and focuses on some of them. Inspired directly from the Bertrandu0026#39;s life (and from the directoru0026#39;s life as well), his narrative is informal, genuine, sometimes contradictory but never pedantic nor rude. He remembers his love affairs, his bad and good times, and, most of all, tries to express his feelings to such an extent that is story must be seen as an auto-analysis, the writeru0026#39;s personal attempt to understand his personality rather than a woman chaseru0026#39;s curriculum vitae. Come to that, Charles Denner, the lead, shows us very well that his characteru0026#39;s everything short of a sexist and self-confident womanizer. He fell in love once, but this experience turned out to be a real disappointment. Now, he feels as if he were unable to love anymore. So, heu0026#39;s `collectingu0026#39;. He may have shortcomings, he may have fun picking up beautiful girls wherever and whenever he can, he may not be the kind of faithful and steady guy a good many girls usually like, his behavior might be considered as outrageous by some, the thing is heu0026#39;s a sensitive, affectionate, simple and nice person who knows how to make women happy and comfortable. Each mistressu0026#39;s chosen for a particular reason, a physical standard (behavior, way of walking, voice..) but all share one thing : they have long, smooth and attractive legs. All in all, `The man who loved womenu0026#39; is a mighty good film, worth watching it.”