98 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars for the ORIGINAL FRENCH version, October 5, 2002
This review is from: A Man and a Woman [VHS] (VHS Tape)
And this ain't it. But it's all we got for now, so heh.
"Un Homme et une Femme" holds up quite well some 32 years hence. Younger viewers may not realize that a lot of the montage devices and tricks that may seem 'dated' were actually popularized and/or invented herein by Claude Lelouch. I actually found myself rewinding to watch the color sections a couple of times, especially the mid-film sequence scored to Francis Lai's achingly sentimental and lovely "Stronger than Us" as Anouk Aimee (the world's most beautiful woman) and Jean-Louis Triginant stroll the Deauville shore and muse on art and life. The tinting and grain of those sections - the boat ride, Anouk remembering her dead husband (Pierre Barouh) as he sings "Samba Saravah" to her - set a trend I pine for again.
The story? Well, thin, even by today's lughead standards (widower and widow fall in love against some lovely French scenery shot in winter), but it's obvious Lelouch was going for something that was quite new, then: a marriage of film and music that was not a "musical" per se, but rather, the forerunner of MTV (well, MTV with a soul, let's say). Cut loosely but thankfully not on-the-beat to Lai's jazzy/lush mid-60s score, Lelouch suceeds darn well. The freeze-frame ending cued to the final electric piano note, and that moment when Anouk Aimee pauses for the longest time and says to Jean-Louis, "You never told me about your wife", are two of my favorite filmgoing moments.
"Un Homme et une Femme" is emblematic of a world-view which I, for one, wish would take hold of folks again and topple the psychotic-trash-nihilistic consciousness now dominating pop culture. It was thoughtful, romantic, inward and outward at once, loving of sentiment but not wallowing in sentimentality, sophisticated, in love with love and with being alive in the world... not afraid of seeming tender. If any of this strikes you as square or passe or naive, then, this ain't your movie.
Let's hope the DVD gets released in French. Daria could use some alternative programming to 'Sick,Sad World', as could some of the rest of us.
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60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Man and A Woman, September 8, 2000
This review is from: A Man and a Woman [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The original movie, which was the winner of the '66 Cannes Film Festival,was MAGNIFICENT in its original language. The English ruins the effect of the entire enxperience. Seeing it in French (with English subtitles)was magic along with the French lyrics to the accompanying music. The terrible "tonality" of the voices on the dubbed version cheapens the experience and makes it a totally different, flatter movie, and not nearly as romantic and sensual.
Please advise viewers if a new version containing French language (English Subs), and French music comes along. That would be wonderful!!!! Because I, for one, have NEVER forgotten the romance of this movie.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cut!, December 9, 1999
This review is from: A Man and a Woman [VHS] (VHS Tape)
That's what the editors of this version did - they cut at least two of the most moving scenes from the original French language, English sub-titled edition. Additional scenes were jaggedly removed, often disrupting the natural and graceful flow of the original. Was this an edited-for-television version? Why not offer the original movie theater version? That 5-star masterpiece was reduced to 3-stars by the hacked editing and average dubbing. If you've not seen it before, you will enjoy this version much more.
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