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Sadly Over-hyped

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Confidentially is truly one of the very best fun mysteries. Frankly,I don't quite understand how some do not seem to understand that this is just a wonderful way to pass a couple of hours. It certainly is not necessary to analyze each and every minute of the picture. I suppose that most of us have a few films, which we always remember and continually go back to contemplate. This is Confidentially. I have it on a quite old VHS and probably watch it at least once every few months. There are so many wonderful aspects. So very different from the run of the mill. I can watch over and over again the opening scene walking with the dog or the closing playing with the lens cap. What incredible music. Interesting, in another Truffaut film, the leg walking scene is vividly portrayed. Ardant is one of those very special French artists that never seem to change or for that matter, age. Twenty years after this film, she starred in Nathalie and Callas. She still is extremely beautiful. I sure would like to figure out just what is the French secret. Danielle Darrieux is still making pictures at 93. It has been more than 50 years since Jean Louis Trintignant became famous after his Brigitte Bardot film. BTW - there are so very many ever so interesting small pieces in Confidentially. One I really like is the one about the girl who comes to the office for a secretarial job interview. This picture is now 27 years old. Will we have to wait another 27 years for another perfectly coordinated and exquisitely designed film to appear?

Leave it to the French to find an American pulp fiction novel like Charles Williams' "The Long Saturday Night" and turn it to cinematic terms. Such was the choice of Francois Truffaut, one of the champions of the New Wave movement, and a fervent admirer of director Alfred Hitchcock, to translate the story into a French one, paying homage to his idol as he only knew how. The result was a film a step below of his great movies.The story is about Jean Vercel, a real estate agent, who is a suspect for killing both his wife, Marie-Christine, and her lover. Vatel goes to hide in his office and engages his secretary, Barbara, who is secretly in love with her boss to do the investigating as he wants to clear his name. It is clear that Barbara has a knack for getting to the bottom of the problem to help the man she loves.Truffaut shot the film in black and white. He worked on the screenplay with two writers he had worked before, Suzanne Schiffman and Jean Aurel. The result is a movie that was more a product of the way he felt about Hitchcock, and in many respects, also an homage to Stanley Kubrick, whom he also admired, than a deeply felt film. To prove how he felt about Kubrick, he has Barbara at one point ask a cinema ticket seller whether "Paths of Glory" is a love story. Mr. Truffaut must have been sick while involved in the project because he died shortly after it was finished.Fanny Ardant is the best excuse for watching the movie. She plays Barbara, the secretary that wants to exonerate her boss and acts as a detective. Jean Louis Trintignant is the accused man, Jean Vercel, in a role that didn't do much for him. This film was also a tribute to Ms. Ardant and the way the director felt about her.

For such a big Hitchcock fan Truffaut disappointed a bit with this movie. We see the starkness of Hitchcock. We see the mood music as in Psycho. But it is not Hitchcock. The lead actress is unremarkable in every way. Her face is quite gaunt. None of the actors stand out. The story tends to drag. Truffaut was perhaps better for Hitchcock in helping to keep his name before the public than any other director. There is a disparity between his admiration for the British director and his ability to make the same type of suspense films. The film had a very foreign feel to it, not pleasantly so. There was maybe not enough starkness. Definitely not enough richness. But worth seeing to better understand Truffaut's style.

The most suitable movie in the 80's to be filmed in black-and-white. Masterfully directed by Francois Truffuat. Huge part smart, swift, suspenseful and surprising; interesting almost to the very end, (the mystery is slightly better than its solution). Wish they'd make more like these.