A Man and a Woman--20 Years Later

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Unnecessary, self-indulgent, playful, autobiographical - a real curate's egg of a movie
A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later/ Un Homme et Une Femme: Vingt Ans Déjà is one of those forgotten belated sequels, and generally hated by those who do remember it. The budget is bigger, the plot more expansive, the relationships less tentative, the stunt driving more spectacular and this time the whole film is not only in color but CinemaScope as well, so on the surface the film only has the characters to really link it to the original, although even they've moved on in life. Aimee's character has become a film producer and, in the wake of a disastrous super-production set during the liberation of Paris that looks like outtakes from Lelouch's own Les Uns et Les Autres/Bolero, has the idea of revisiting her almost love-story in much the same way that after the disaster of Les Grands Moments Lelouch hurriedly produced the original film to stave off the threat of bankruptcy, bringing the pair back together. At first Trintignant's reluctant to give his permission, disappointed that she asked to meet him for the first time in twenty years for a business proposition rather than a romantic one, but his curiosity wins out. Naturally, romance is back on the cards, but neither that nor the film work out quite as expected... The opening certainly bodes ill, with a horrendous 80s version of Francis Lai's theme giving way to an extended sequence of fast driving stunts and a scene of a power-dressed Anouk Aimee striding through a set filled with hundreds of extras, and it certainly takes a while to get over the change in style. Only one scene really harks back to the feel of the original, as Aimée's steel dissolves and she briefly becomes the young woman she was twenty years earlier as the two meet in a restaurant and talk about what could or should have been. But otherwise this is a very different animal to the original, with the two characters existing in worlds where the possibility of love is no longer everything and the director obviously torn between revisiting the first film and creating something new as if both desperate to resist the trap of nostalgia but simultaneously in thrall to it. Although generally dismissed as a pointless cash-in, it's actually a neat exercise in semi-autobiographical directorial rumination, reflecting on the original film and what it meant for its participants (characters and filmmakers alike) as much as it does on their love story. It's not exactly Lelouch's 8½, but there's a playful sense of indecision about the piece as he throws in a real-life killing involving an escaped mental patient that seems initially gratuitous but later assumes prominence as Aimée - and, by proxy, Lelouch - realises that their original love story simply won't play with a modern audience and changes tack for a more sensationally commercial project. If this seems unlikely, the change in films at least has a historical precedent: Lelouch was so unhappy with Les Grands Moments that, after failing to get a distribution deal, he reputedly destroyed the negative so it could never be seen. Far more unlikely is that Aimée decides to produce her version of Un Homme et Une Femme as a musical, making this at times feel like one of Jacques Demy's darker films, although it's telling that the audience for Aimee's flop is entirely middle-aged - Lelouch clearly knows who his shrinking audience is even if he doesn't always know what kind of film he needs to make to recapture a modern mass audience. The last section, with Trintignant lost in the desert with his suicidal lover who wants to take him with her (played by Lelouch's future wife Marie Sophie Pochat while his marriage to Evelyne Bouix - who plays Aimée's daughter here - was breaking up) seems like a third movie altogether. Not necessarily a bad one, more a "Where did that suddenly come from?" one, and it's this section that's the film's least satisfying, losing the playfulness and leaving you with the impression that, like the much less satisfying Les Uns et les Autres, this often feels like a series of scenes and plot strands that Lelouch wanted to film thrown together without ever quite finding a resolution. Like many of his films it's by no means a complete success, but it's also by no means the failure it's often painted as - chalk this one up as an ambitious and intriguingly inconsistent miss, but one that offers a lot more of interest than some of his outright successes. Both films are currently available at a bargain price on a nice PAL 3-disc set with English subtitles from Amazon.fr (the third disc of extras has no subtitles, however).

So......What's New?
"A Man and A Woman" may not be Claude Lelouch's best film, but, it undoubtedly is his most popular. When "A Man and A Woman" was first released in 1966 it became a worldwide hit. It put Lelouch on the map. It was made during a time when the anthem of life was "sex, drugs, and rock n' roll". Yet the movie presented a kind of eternal love. These characters weren't interested in "free love". They had felt a love that would not die. "A Man and A Woman: 20 Years Later" is a film that argues when an old love dies, we should welcome a new love. Remember the lyrics to Michel Legrand's "Watch What Happens". Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimee) is no longer a script girl, now she is a film producer. Her latest film has flopped with the critics and the public. Anne feels the desperate need to redeem herself and start working on a new film. She decides to film the story of her love affair with Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Tringtignant), whom after all these years is still living life in the fast lane. The meeting between the two brought back such memories. Of course it helped that Lelouch inserts clips from the original now and then. To see these two characters meet again after 20 years was like seeing old friends you've lost touched with. I'm tempted to compare the experience to something Ingmar Bergman did last year with his sequel to "Scenes From A Marriage", "Saraband". There too we were dealing with characters we as audience felt we knew. That is the big thing Lelouch has going for him with this film. Nostalgia. "A Man and A Woman: 20 Years Later" is not a better film than the original. It's not as beautifully shot nor is it as expertly written (the original won the Oscar for best original screenplay). But nostalgia is the name of the game here with this film. Nostalgia for the original, nostalgia for lost love and youth. The movie is about second chances. One of the ways Lelouch pushes forward his theme of second chances is by showing us the new movie Anne is working on. When she first decides to film Jean-Louis and her story we can sense that old flame between them start to burn, but then Anne decides not to make the movie. Instead she begins work on a thriller. A story that is in the headlines about a man who escapes from a mental hospital and is accused of killing his wife and child. But Anne film argues it wasn't the man who killed his wife it was someone else. Thus giving him a second chance. Another sub-plot has Jean-Louis stranded with his young wife in the desert. She has found out about Jean-Louis and Anne. Mostly because he told her and has decided to leave her. She takes actions that will ensure the two to be stuck together. It is her attempt at a second chance with her husband. The problem I have with the movie though is I'm not sure Lelouch is using the best scenarios to get his point across. Did we really need the murder sub-plot or the desert scenes? Couldn't Lelouch just have focused more on the two lead characters? I think I would have prefered that film over this one. But, in the end I appreciate Lelouch's work and this film. What can I say, I'm something of a hopeless romantic. Or maybe I'm just hopeless. I haven't decided yet. I like the film's ideas and as I said before I felt a certain nostaglia when Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant were on-screen together. Plus, probably in complete contradiction to the rest of the American public, I have to admit, I absolutely love the theme song. Which here in this movie is updated a bit. It has a more funky sound to it. If you're a fan of Claude Lelouch or a fan of the original I think you may enjoy this film. Again, it's like visiting old friends. It will put a smile on your face. You'll have a good time catching up and afterwards you may forget certain moments, but in the end you'll be glad you decided to watch the movie. Bottom-line: By no means one of Lelouch's best films. And in no way better than the original, but, it's a film that has a lot of sentimentality to it. Works best if you've seen the original first.

Does it really need to take 20 years!
Finally ... a happy ending after 2 decades! I found this sequel a week after the original and was glad to see a happy ending. Love doesn't die and can persist no matter how many years, activities, distractions, and justifications you come up with. When the old lovers are reunited they actually don't mess it up this time! A happy ending is rare in French films. Watch this and weep. Great to watch the duo with Before Sunrise/Before Sunset. It plays on the same kind of theme of lost time and memories.

Pick Up the Pieces
Interesting film in that it shows the same actors - Anouk and Jean Louis playing the same roles twenty years later. It's interesting to see how they both have changed. BTW: Jean Louis is terrific as the Brain in City of the Lost Children. Great to hear both actors in their native tongue as compared to the original A Man and A Woman which is only available in the States in a dubbed English version. I watch that film with the sound off! This follow up movie displays Director Claude Lelouch kinetic camera work with some nice visuals on movie sets, in Paris, in North African Desert and back to Deauville the site of the original A Man and A Woman. Francis Lai, the composer add alittle Jazzy flavor to the soundtrack. Unfortunately the story is like a puzzle with the missing pieces. Still I enjoyed the film because I really can not watch the original in a dubbed version! Bloody awful! For a better Claude Lelouch film, I recommend his version of Les Miserables with Jean Paul Belmondo. Great story, great visuals and original language and with all the pieces together!

Worth watching if you really liked the original movie.
Not as good as the original movie, but worth watching if you want to catch up with the characters twenty years later. Interesting to see how their children have grown up (good casting - daughter looks very much like Anouk Aimee). The "movie within a movie" is dull - watch it the first time, then fast forward for later viewings. The ending is satisfactory, but I would have liked to have seen Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant on screen together more.