Fresh and Exciting

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Absolutely brilliant

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Romantic film about the emerging love between two young people, shown through the eyes of the men. The story shows how he gives his constant attempts to win her heart, and also shows how he slowly go "insane" when he is away from her.After several refusals, he initially received, he began to work a bunch of strange activities, such as working as a private detective. Despite their current separation, however, his favorite is still interested in him, until finally reveals her feelings completely (invites him to sleep in her home when her parents will be out).Beautiful and cute movie.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

After a stint in the army, Antoine Doinel is released from active duty because of insubordination and ineptitude. The releasing officer does not have kind words for the soon to be civilian young man. As he comes out from the place, he does not take long to find his way to have sex with a prostitute and to reclaim his humble abode in a run down apartment.Antoine is lucky in getting a position at a hotel thanks to the parents of Christine, his on and off girlfriend. It is obvious Antoine is not fit for the position as he bungles a situation where a cheating wife is surprised with her lover in a room where the reception clerk is duped by the older P.I. behind the case. The older detective feels bad for having caused Antoine's the loss of his job and recommends him to apply for a job with his agency.The detective agency proves to be no different from Antoine's previous experiences. His best success in a case is when his superior asks him to infiltrate the shoe store owned by M. Tabard, who feels his employees simply hate him and wants to find out what is he doing wrong. No one is happier to meet Antoine than Fabienne Tabard, the stylish wife of the owner; she sees in Antoine a man she can seduce and who will appreciate her charms. "Stolen Kisses" is a continuation on Francois Truffaut's take on the character that first was examined in his "400 Blows". It is a picaresque comedy because the way Antoine sees the world around him, a society where he does not fit snugly. Mr. Truffaut made a few films around his Antoine Doinel and this one, even 44 years after it was released, still is enjoyable to watch. It is light in tone as the inept young hero of the story goes from one occupation to the next without not knowing where his future will take him. His girlfriend Christine Darbon, is an afterthought in the narrative, although by the end Antoine gets serious about getting more involved, and in a way, settled with the lovely young lady.It would have been inconceivable to think anyone else but Jean-Pierre Leaud, the original Antoine of a few years before, not playing him again. Mr. Leaud had a good working with Mr. Truffaut as they collaborated on different projects together. Best thing in the film is the elegant Delphine Seyrig, playing Fabienne Tabbard, a sophisticated seductress that captures Antoine's vivid imagination. Claude Jade appears as the sweet Christine, the woman Antoine desires. Michael Lonsdale is also perfect as M. Tabard, the shoe store owner. "Stolen Kisses" remains among Francois Truffaut most best comedies, which seen today, evokes a bygone era and the atmosphere of a bygone period in Paris, which was lovingly photographed by Denys Clerval, with a musical score by Antoine Duhanel.

SPOILERS INCLUDED: The morning-after breakfast scene is so endearingly simple as Truffaut manages to convey all of Antoine & Christine's affection sans pushy music, cliché, or even dialogue- just the two of them sitting at a table, scribbling their declarations of romance to one another on a piece of napkin over breakfast. We don't even need to know what they're writing down. We, the audience are already captivated and satisfied to just share in their intimate moment celebrating life's little joys. And as we watch the scene with the flighty Antoine staring at his own image in the mirror, repeating the names of his objects of desires with utterly convicted indecision, the question of who should he pursue becomes a matter of life and death. Fabienne Tabard. Christine Darbon. We wait in suspense. And when he begins to repeat his own name with the same earnestness, we realize that perhaps this love is not fleeting- could how he chooses love determine the very essence who he is? Truffaut made a slight, refreshing break from the melancholy of the first two Antoine Doinel series. This third installment has some of the most charming cinematic exclamations of love and that twenty-something search for the "joie de vivre."

It is incredible how well this film has held up over the years, and how it continues to fill you with all the spirit of hope and exultation that was part of l'epoque. This is not an overtly political film, though there are passing references to and images of the contemporary demonstrations which would shake France to its core in May of '68. Nonetheless, it captures spectacularly well the revolutionary feel of the times and makes perfectly understandable why Truffaut and Godard would call for the cancellation of the Cannes Festival of 1968. Nothing could go on has it had in the past after May '68, and "Stolen Kisses" itself was a statement of that refusal. The film is perhaps the best political film of the upheaval of that period for at least two reasons: 1) the attitude towards work: Antoine Doinel passes from job to job without a second thought, not worrying himself about a "career," and with a playful attitude that seemed inspired by Guy Debord's slogan of "ne travaillez jamais" ("never work"); 2) the attitude towards life in general: the film reflects that sensibility of the '68 movement that "everything is possible", that life can be lived as one adventure after another (as opposed to the dreary workaday life proffered by the bourgeoisie), that the craziest things can happen to you and that you should be open to taking them into your life (e.g., Christine falling in love with Antoine and vice versa). The lightness of the film is its greatest quality, for it suggests that all those "heavy" structures, physical, psychological, political and societal, can be overcome ("sous les pavés, la plage"/"beneath the pavement lies the beach") and life can be recovered.