Customer Reviews

Two English Girls (Les deux anglaises et le continent)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Undoubtedly, the film is excellent, though I don't call this a masterpiece (I'm still not sure if the narration is too much in this film). But the DVD... not too bad, but when the box tells you that it is FULLY RESTORED, you should expect more from this. A brief scene (about 1 minute) is deleted. When Anne meets Claude again, it takes quite a few days before Anne takes off her bra and goes to Claude's bed. Their conversation on the bed (in which Anne is shown topless) is missing. Some scenes also turn too dark. If you don't mind these, this is still an OK DVD.

One of Truffaut's favorite movies of mine, TWO ENGLISH GIRLS is an adaptation of a novel from Henri-Pierre Roché, the author of "Jules & Jim", a book Truffaut had adapted 10 years before.

Two women, one man and the waltz of the misunderstandings and the hesitations dancing between the walls of a love that doesn't dare to speak. The movie features a romantic love story happening a hundred years too late, so, as always in Truffaut movies, the characters are out of focus, they live a virtual passionate love that could fill hundreds of pages of a novel but are doomed to suffer in the trivial reality of the beginning of the XXth century.

A superb musical score by Georges Delerue and a Jean-Pierre Léaud lunar as usual should tempt you even if the quality of the DVD presented by Fox Lorber is no more than average.

A DVD zone your library.

Arguably the director's best movie,LES DEUX ANGLAISES ET LE CONTINENT is both charming and moving.TRUFFAUT always loved stories about love triangles(his own life was like that).It is not surprizing that he added the scenes that were originally missing when the film was first presented in 1971.He was obviously very fond of that movie.JEAN-PIERRE LÉAUD his alter ego from the DOINEL series was miscast to be sure,but it doesn't diminish the quality of the storytelling.A common TRUFFAUT device here is the use of the voice over that comes off perfectly.Very few films have succeeded in presenting the theme of love in all it's cruelty and physical aspects.MURIEL and ANNE the héroines are reminiscent of the BRONTÉ sisters.A good choice for anyone who wants to understand the psychology of women.

The restored 130-minute version of Two English Girls is something of a misfire but not without compensations. For a director who complained about the overly-literary nature of French cinema, his mise-en-scene is very clumsy here, with excessive use of narration not just to fill in gaps but to tell us the characters thoughts and feelings during scenes where, had he done his job properly, we should know. At times it threatens to become a slideshow accompaniment to a book reading.

The plot ambles along directionlessly as Jean-Pierre Leaud's selfish young Frenchman selfishly destroys two sisters' lives without ever finding happiness himself. It's very much fantasy-fulfilment, with the two embodying Madonna and Whore and at times threatens to turn into a distaff Jules et Jim as everyone is oh so civilized about it all. The casting is also problematic. Kika Markham is fine as the free-spirit of sorts, but Stacey Tendeter is less effective as her 'purer' sister and the casting of the minor British roles is haphazard at best - David Markham is fine as a fortune teller, but the next-door neighbour is not exactly a natural actor and one scene features a London Bobby who looks about as English as Raimu on a particularly jowelly day.

It's one of those films that always seems to be on for another hour no matter how far into it you get, and it doesn't reward the effort with more than minor pleasures. But it is nice to see composer Georges Delerue in a small role as an estate agent and for all its clumsiness and overlength it has its moments and a mildly affecting ending. It's just a shame getting there took so long.

The DVD transfer is respectable rather than outstanding, with a gallery of French trailers from most of Truffaut's films.

Truffaut made lots of great movies, and lots of mediocre ones. "Two English Girls" stands out, I think, as his best.
Like "Jules and Jim," this film involves a love triangle, only instead of two men and woman, as the title suggests, this triangle is made up of two women (sisters) and a man named Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud).
Initially, during an extended stay at the girls home in England, Claude falls in love with Muriel (Stacey Tendeter), but after a period of separation, he decides to "play the field." When Muriel's sister Anne (Kika Markham) moves to Paris, Claude begins a relationship with her, only to find that she can play the field too. Eventually, Claude and Muriel come together for one night, and the experience rekindles Claude's love. But it is not to be. I won't spoil the films ending, but will say that it leaves only the most unsentimental viewers without tears in their eyes.
The films sole flaw is a short part in which Muriel confesses to masturbation in a letter. This detracts from what is otherwise a supremely sensitive and touching film.

One of Truffaut's most ambitious and explicit films. Exquisitely photographied, superbly played. At the turn of the century, an aspiring young writer spends a holiday on the welsh coast with 2 english sisters, and falls in love with them both. Not as good as "Jules et Jim", but definitely a must see if you are a Truffaut fan.

The restored 130-minute version of Two English Girls is something of a misfire but not without compensations. For a director who complained about the overly-literary nature of French cinema, his mise-en-scene is very clumsy here, with excessive use of narration not just to fill in gaps but to tell us the characters thoughts and feelings during scenes where, had he done his job properly, we should know. At times it threatens to become a slideshow accompaniment to a book reading.

The plot ambles along directionlessly as Jean-Pierre Leaud's selfish young Frenchman selfishly destroys two sisters' lives without ever finding happiness himself. It's very much fantasy-fulfilment, with the two embodying Madonna and Whore and at times threatens to turn into a distaff Jules et Jim as everyone is oh so civilized about it all. The casting is also problematic. Kika Markham is fine as the free-spirit of sorts, but Stacey Tendeter is less effective as her 'purer' sister and the casting of the minor British roles is haphazard at best - David Markham is fine as a fortune teller, but the next-door neighbour is not exactly a natural actor and one scene features a London Bobby who looks about as English as Raimu on a particularly jowelly day.

It's one of those films that always seems to be on for another hour no matter how far into it you get, and it doesn't reward the effort with more than minor pleasures. But it is nice to see composer Georges Delerue in a small role as an estate agent and for all its clumsiness and overlength it has its moments and a mildly affecting ending. It's just a shame getting there took so long.

Whereas the US NTSC DVD from Koch Lorber only has a gallery of French trailers from most of Truffaut's films, the extras on the PAL Australian Region 4 DVD stretch to a vintage interview with Truffaut and footage of him shooting the film.

The great films of Truffuat are those where the director's playful stylism is counterweighed by an emotionally attuned surface-layer of depth. "Two English Girls", although very much a beauty, isn't one of those. It's not marked by the virtuoso camera work of early masterworks such as "Shoot The Piano Player", or the astutely awed comedic detail of "Day For Night" or even by a gargantuan performance like "The Wild Child". And missing most, is Truffaut's great talent in invoking a child's world of wonder (so proudly displayed (in his best film) "Small Change")...but it's not all bad.

Thankfully, this film has two immediate merits that make it unexpendible: 1) The music by Georges Delerue, who here crafts a score reminicent of late period Mozart; a haunting procession of melopheic still life and graceful sadness, it's without a doubt his finest work made for the filmmaker. 2) Nestor Almendros glorious natural photography. Almendros, along with Sven Nykvist and John Alcott, was one of his generation's giants of cinematography, and like "Days of Heaven" and Almendros' films for Eric Rohmer, the look of this one hasn't aged a day.

Truffaut fashioned the film as a sort of reverse-sequel to "Jules And Jim", which was one of his greatest successes. Based on a book by "Jim" author Henri-Pierre Roche, the film's set in an identical period (turn of the century France), and given the familiar plot (a love triange, only this time it's two women to one lucky guy). The man is Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud, think a Franciese, intellectualized Tom Cruise), who hails from a rich boring family and spends summers as a young man in England as the company of two seemingly puritan sisters, Anne (Kika Markham) and the younger Muriel (Stacey Tendeter). Over time, Claude's parisian-boho morals infume these two women causing each in turn to fall in love with him.

Although Leuad is the movie's centerpiece, we never feel like we quite know (or care) for him. Art mingles with life when Claude writes a book called "Jerome and Julian", but I found it nowhere believable that this spoiled, distracted character was the kind of man who could pen a novel. In the end, the performance comes off as unconvincing and a wee bit vague. The same can be said of Markham's Anne. Could such an alluring but strangely very passive woman have three heated love affairs in a tiny stretch of time? Luckily, Tendeter's Muriel makes up for it. Pokerfaced with her eyes hidden behind a jet-black lense set, this stiff, implosive, reprehensibe, timid-yet-outspoken firecrotch is a salad of silent bouts and stubborn fits. And Tendeter, whose lines cross her face with freckled rebellion, fills her shoes like she's trotted this feisty woman's path quite naturally.

It helps that Tendeter is given the two greatest scenes in the film, one involving a sensual confession of female masturbation and the other a blood soaked moment when Claude busts Muriel's virginity (a discomforting image in tone with the glass-cutting scene from Bergman's "Cries and Whispers").

But those searching for a return to the whip-panning style of "Jules and Jim" will be sorely disappointed, as "Two English Girls" is more in common stylistically with Merchant Ivory, or a slower, theatrically paced later Truffaut film like "The Last Metro" (not my cup of tea by a longshot). Yet I recommend it for the blissful sound and image and for it's portrayal of a woman who, as a result of betraying her innocence, is touched by acid in the soul. Like Ullmann in "Cries and Whispers" or any of the traitorous medusic nemesi' in the films of Tarkovksy: she's a tarnished, fractured, anguished, bitter, unpleasantly human redhead.

Five stars for the film, four stars because this DVD has no extras.
This is among Truffaut's best films, and in some ways, even better than Jules and Jim because Truffaut was older when he made it and was able to deal more complexly with the difficulties of love. The control of the color palette (beautifully shot by Nestor Almendros) and the references to the Bronte sisters add to the beauty of the film. The acting is at times stilted and melodramatic yet somehow this deepens the melancholy of the film. The British actresses give themselves fully to their roles. Leaud could be more expressive but I see why Truffaut used him and in retrospect, I'm glad he did because he connects the film to the director's other work. I would normally rate this film with five stars but the DVD is not an entirely satisfactory transfer and I'm waiting for the Criterion version, with extras. Even the chapter settings on this DVD are inadequate. Please Criterion, put out all of Truffaut's work with the neccessary extras.

Adapted from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche (like Truffaut's "Jules and Jim"), "Girls" is an engaging, erotic tale about a uniquely conflicted love triangle, since the English lasses in question are not only rivals for Claude's love but siblings. Truffaut regular Léaud's Claude is endearing, as is Markham's highly artistic Anne. Before his death in 1984, the director restored 20 minutes of footage, and the definitive version is presented here. With its gorgeous coastal settings and a lovely score by Georges Delerue, "Two English Girls" will seduce moviegoers in the mood for love.