Review of Bed and Board (1970) by Hugo S — 14 Mar 2008

DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970).

Directed by François Truffaut.

Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Barbara LaageDomicile conjugal is the third installment in the Antoine Doinel saga and its the follow-up to Baisers Volés. It almost begins where the other one ended, its start up lightly as we discover that Antoine and Christine are now married and live together. Its gives Truffaut the oppurtunity to explore another side of relationship, we get into their intimacy and see them fight and converse about casual stuff.Antoine and Christine find themselves being parents and the tensions get bigger, the films starts going deeper into the reflection about relationship. Antoine has an affair with a Japenese girl which seems to come out of nowhere but it gives us some interesting stuff about the clash of cultures. The couple seperates and the film kinda becomes depressive as it shows us the regrets of the characters but its always interesting.François Truffaut does another good job at finding interesting ways to tell his story, the camera moves well and the dialogues are pretty good, some bits are totally useless but very clever just to make us smile. The only complain about the film would be how Truffaut tries to say too much in such a short film even if he always gets his point across, even with the weird ending. Jean-Pierre Léaud is like a fish in water, he plays his character perfectly and acts all natural. Good film.