La femme d'à côté
Tags: tragedy

Plot synopsis:
Bernard lives happily with his wife Arlette and young son in a village outside Grenoble. One day a married couple with a little boy, Philippe and Mathilde, move into the house next door. Bernard and Mathilde are shocked at meeting each other because years before, when both single, they had a stormy affair which ended painfully. At first Bernard avoids Mathilde, until a chance meeting in a supermarket reawakens long-buried passions and soon, while openly good neighbours, in secret they pursue an affair. Though both find the strain of living their normal family and working lives unbearable, it is Bernard who cracks first. After publicly revealing his violent passion for Mathilde at a garden party, he keeps away from her and the two households try to get on with their lives. But the rejected Mathilde then cracks and, after publicly collapsing at the tennis club, is hospitalised with depression. When she is released, she finds that to get far away from Bernard her husband has moved them out of the village. One night Bernard is woken by a banging shutter on the empty house next door and gets up to investigate. In the house, he spots Mathilde in the darkness. After they have made love on the bare floor, taking a gun out of her handbag she shoots first him and then herself.

Review: An outstanding love story, with an astonishing, riveting performance from Fanny Ardant.
My own love affair with Truffaut began as a teenager when I first saw "Jules and Jim." But "La femme d'a cote" moved me most directly and most powerfully of all his great work.
"The Woman Next Door" presents us with the power, the physical impact of love, the way it "takes our breath" away and so much more.
Truffaut so often focuses on love, and usually more positively and in a greater variety of ways than other great directors.
But if you want funny, fresh young love, see Truffaut's "Soft Skin" or even "Don't Shoot the Piano Player.
His films which are more about infatuation versus love, i.e., the original (Truffaut's film, not the American one with Bert Reynolds)  "The Man Who Loved Women" or even the Hitchcock tribute "The Bride Wore Black" while "darker" in tone -- all these remain quite funny, generally light in tone, and quite lively in pace and style.
In "The Woman Next Door," more tragic, melancholic moments appear -- it's more akin to the highly autobiographical "The 400 Blows," which tells of Truffaut's difficult adolescence.
Truffaut did, personally, fall in love with Ardant, the lead actress here; they married, so just how much autobiography went into this tale and film -- I don't know.
Ardant went on to act well in many other films, even in several after Truffaut's death.
François Truffaut makes of "La femme d'à Côté" ("The Woman Next Door"), an apparent clichéd love story, to have the enormous feel of being something complete unknown to us (Obvisouly the film has its moments of originality though).Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) lives in a small community along with wife (Michèle Baumgartner) and his son, all is happy and well until the house next to his gets bought by the Bauchard (Henri Garcin and Fanny Ardant), a friendly couple, being Mathilde, the woman of the film's title, an old affair of Bernard.
What is quite obvious as well is that the combination old flames on a new affair might have some tragic consequences for everybody involved.In "La femme d'à Côté" Truffaut finally managed to balance the instabilities between the characters involved in a relationship, something that, at my view, was only noticed when we pay attention to the female characters like Catherine from "Jules et Jim" and the title character of "The Story of Adele H." in which only the women acted out of desperation, lost their sanity and went through hell with their love affairs.
In this more original scenario the man is driven to the point of madness, completely alienated from everything, just thinking in living with his lover (even though, again, it's the woman who suffers more throughout the film).
It is balanced since in the other classics the men didn't seem to care much for what was happening to the women (specially in "Adele H." the man was completely cold, ruthless towards the girl who at one time was the love of his life).And who narrates Bernard and Mathilde's story?
An old lady named Madame Odile (nicely played by Véronique Silver), a handicapped woman who survived a suicide attempt by jumping from a building right after being rejected by the man she loved (You can take your conclusions from here).
The way the story swings from a soft comedy, quite gentle in its pace, from a romantic film to a complex drama, all these changes were greatly presented, the variations work because we have a director that really knows how to perform them.
But this film doesn't go without some problems, there's some difficult things to accept and see (like when Bernard can't hold any longer his anguish and decides, in front of everybody during a party to show his love for Mathilde in the most dreadful way, a real scandal) as things happening in reality (and most of the film looks realistic so why this created situations in which people couldn't relate with it?).
Small problems, nothing so distractive or ruining, neither something that deserves a negative review (the two bad ones featured on the site are amazingly incoherent, illogical, and ridiculous just to say a few words about them).If the story isn't good enough to make you watch this film, at least go for the director and the actors involved with it, Ardant and Depardieu on their greatest level of acting playing what could be a perfect couple if it wasn't for their complicated lives with their spouses.
One day a new couple move in next door: Philippe and Mathilde, the latter of whom is a seductive woman with a secret -- she used to be Bernard's lover...I love Truffaut's films (of the ones I've seen, anyway) and when I approached this I had a genuine fear of disappointment -- it's one of his later films and I hadn't heard very much about it.I was surprised to find it's an excellent love story/character examination and better than it is generally given credit for.
It's the typically tragic tale reminiscent of those we've seen before in cinema -- a French Romeo and Juliet.Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant are perfect together and their chemistry sparks.
Very good movie with excellent performances from Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant.
La Femme d'a Cote shows violent emotional state of two melancholic lovers.Truffaut wanted to reveal the extreme steps of frustrated love.It is a brilliant story of passion set in the provincial french town of Grenoble which shows that love is the only thing that is universal.Bernard and Mathilde are truly the perfect lovers Truffaut wished to exploit in his film.There is a sense of urgency in their love affair as in a place where all the people know each other,it is highly improbable that any love affair can remain a secret.La Femme d'a Cote has agreeably given an idea about small town charm wherein Truffaut has vividly portrayed all the minor details of provincial life.Truffaut,while filming La Femme d'a Cote,hoped that the viewer would not be tempted to take sides in order to call one wrong and the other wrong but would love them both as he has loved them.Truffaut will remain the only filmmaker who has mastered the art of human emotions.La Femme d'a Cote gives an impression of an affecting account of human foibles by illustrating how a happy married man sacrifices everything for trivial passion..
Neither with You, Nor without You. In Grenoble, Bernard Coudray (Gérard Depardieu) and his wife Arlette Coudray (Michèle Baumgartner) are happily married with their son Thomas.
When the next door house is rented to the flight controller Philippe Bauchard (Henri Garcin) and his wife Mathilde Bauchard (Fanny Ardant), Arlette invites the couple for a dinner party but Bernard avoids Mathilde.
"The Woman Next Door", is a tragic and powerful romance by François Truffaut with the love story of a stormy couple reunited again after eight years by chance but that cannot be together.
A young, almost boyish Gerard Depardieu stars in 'The Woman Next Door', one of Francois Truffaut's later films.
In some ways, it's a stereotypically French affair, a stylish and urbane story of passionate love.
Truffaut knows who to tell a story on the screen, this is not a new story, I have seen one like this before in une femme francaise.
Family man Gérard Depardieu is disturbed to learn his new neighbor is, by sheer coincidence, ex-lover Fanny Ardant.
Both are happily married, but that doesn't stop them from resuming their affair, with tragic consequences.The script is nothing new, but François Truffaut's intelligent treatment of the otherwise familiar story avoids the more obvious clichés of popular romantic fiction.
When new neighbors move into the house Bernard meets Philippe Bauchard and is polite  but later Philippe's wife arrives at the new home and Bernard is shocked to recognise her as Mathilde, a lover from many years ago.
Both of them keep this fact from their respective partners and try to keep themselves to themselves as much as they can but it is only a matter of time before repressed passions stir within one another and their hearts are reopened.I'm not trying to enforce stereotypes here but there is something about this film that is undeniably, well, French.
This left the film to just keep moving and keep things happening but, in a very Gaelic fashion, the drama tends to be all in the heart rather than on the screen and it never really is gripping as a story.
Depardieu works hard to be heart broken and wracked  and he does it well despite me feeling like he isn't totally sold on how he is acting.
He is fascinated by their quirkiness and doesn't really acknowledge the consequences of their actions on the people around them.In addition, this film, like many of Truffaut's, is mystified by women, while perhaps being too accepting of men.
If you enjoy the naive, bewildered, and subtly misogynistic perspective that Truffaut takes in this movie, you might love it.
Truffaut came from the same worldview in "Jules and Jim" - "the world is wonderful and women are crazy" - but in that movie, he had a tongue-in-cheek style and playful, larger- than-life story to go along with it.
This movie has a more realistic, down-to-earth plot and setting, and Truffaut's weaknesses show through.If you're not a Chabrol fan, you likely won't be able to put your finger on what's missing.
Believe it or not I want to like Truffaut, I really do, but I wish he'd give me a little help in spots.
I've already upset one reader who seems incapable of grasping an essential of journalism is provocation which generates those letters to the editor and understands even less that opinion masquerading as fact is one of the best ways to do it via earlier comments on Truffaut and he seems destined to suffer even more anguish in a moment when I say that I was astounded when this disciple of the 'now', whose mantra was that new is better than good actually used - and not once but twice - an IRIS OUT which dates back to D.W. Griffith.
The 'story' would fit on the head of a pin and still leave room for the King James version of the Bible; Bernard Coudray (Depardieu) is living happily with wife Arlette (Michele Baumgartner) in the middle of East Jesus when the empty house next door is suddenly occupied by Philippe Bauchard (Henri Garcin) and his wife Mathilde (Ardant).
Depardieu and Ardant are class acts and they almost create believable characters but with no help from either script or direction their hands are tied.
The story happens in a village in France where a young couple live a contented life.
The husband's world is soon turned upside down; however, when a new couple moves in next door in which it turns out the wife was an old lover of his from a relationship that ended acrimoniously.This is a story about intense yet frustrated love and obsession.
Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardent have strong chemistry in the central roles of the adulterous characters conducting their passionate yet troubled affair.
Like Jules et Jim it is in essence a somewhat tragic love story which doesn't really have a good ultimate message to give about the outcome of passionate love affairs.
She became crippled for life after attempting suicide after being rejected by the man she loved; her story acts as a warning from the past for the young lovers, a warning that they ultimately do not or cannot heed..
Like Jules and Jim of nearly twenty years before, this movie presents us with a woman who is larger than life, who makes art out life, who is mesmerising, mystifying, irresistible, enigmatic--and a tremendous pain in the bum.
Can one imagine the husband in this movie, any more than the one in Jules and Jim, sitting down for a discussion with the wife about their budget, or complaining about her housekeeping?Obviously a fantasy so long maintained means a great deal to Truffaut, who was as infatuated with Ardant as he was with Moreau.
Truffaut's fantasy is not one of being a lover but of being a fan, of worshiping a woman who is too far above him for understanding or intimacy.
Just because the guy is French doesn't mean he knows all about love and passion and women.
That seems to be the question behind this 1981 French film, directed by Francois Truffaut.
The story is narrated from the point of view of an older woman, Madame Jouve, who had gone through the agonies of losing in love.
Bernard lives in what appears a happy environment with his wife, Arlette, and their young son.
The house was finally rented.What Bernard does not realize is that he knows the woman moving into the place.
She is Mathilde, a woman with whom he was involved in a passionate affair that ended badly.
Mathilde is married to a flight controller, Philippe.As Arlette makes friends with her new neighbors, but one look between Bernard and Mathilde sets the stage for the passion that consumes them.
Mme. Jouve realizes what is going on right away, but Arlette and Philippe are totally blind about the affair.As all things of this nature, the lovers are doomed.
Mathilde has another thing in mind that will seal her destiny with Bernard."The Woman Next Door" by Francois Truffaut tells a passionate love story in which the director, clearly influenced by his idol Alfred Hitchcock, gives the audience a good love story with suspenseful undertones.
Fanny Ardant's Mathilde is one of her best appearances in the French cinema.
Gerard Depardieu's Bernard does not quite come as inspired as some of his other roles, but he makes a credible lover and one can see how his desire for her never died.
Already making plans to look at French cinema from the year,I was pleased to find a François Truffaut creation,which led to me going next door.
The plot:Working as a teacher in a small town, Bernard Coudray keeps events that happened in his past to himself,with Bernard pushing any questions aside from his wife Arlette and their young son Thomas.
Welcomed in by Philippe Bauchard,Bernard begins to fear that he can't keep his past secret,when he is greeted by Philippe's wife Mathilde,who was Bernard's first ever love.View on the film:Supplementing the feature with informative extras, Artificial Eye delivers a classy transfer,with the image and soundtrack being clean,and the subtitles moving at a readable speed.
Mentioning in the commentary that they both "clicked" the moment they met François Truffaut,Fanny Ardant (who got married to Truffaut) and Gérard Depardieu both give sparkling performances as Bernard Coudray and Mathilde Bauchard.
Being more at ease than Bernard, Fanny Ardant brims Mathilde with a quiet,open confidence,that reveals itself in Mathilde's attempts to get Bernard to open up to Arlette about his past.Keeping track of their decade spanning relationship,co-writer/(with Suzanne Schiffman and Jean Aurel) director François Truffaut & cinematographer William Lubtchansky continue expanding on Truffaut's stylish tracking shots,via the tracking shots here elegantly carrying the passage of time between the couple.
One thing about François Truffaut is that his movies are usually very interesting.
It's a crazy, nearly sick movie about love, yet I like it precisely for its craziness.
French movies are often crazy and that is one of the reasons why I love them.This is the story of Bernard Coudray and Mathilde Bauchard, who had a love affair years ago.
It's exactly like Madame Jouve says: «Ni avec toi, ni sans toi...» («Neither with you, nor without you...»).Gérard Depardieu is great as Bernard Coudray.
Plus, it's a surprise to see him in his earlier years, slim and much younger.Fanny Ardant is equally great as Mathilde Bauchard.
And even though Fanny's face is not the prettiest I've ever seen, she oozes elegance and sexiness.I also enjoy the acting of Véronique Silver as Madame Odile Jouve, who also does a good job in narrating this story.Title in Portugal: 'A mulher do lado'..
The film has Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant in the lead roles.
Fanny Ardant has the role of a sensitive woman whose love for Bernard (Depardieu) knows no bounds.
By now of course Mathilde (Ardant) is married as is Bernard.
I would love to go on and on about this film, but that is not possible without revealing the entire plot..
It starts off as a perfectly normal movie: an ordinary man named Bernard Coudray lives with his wife and his innocent son Thomas.
It affects you in some way, however, as most Truffaut's films do somehow.
The sick side of love in this movie alone is enough to make you fear falling in love but the ending definitely scares you off from that.A young Gérard Depardieu stars here in one of his best actings and movie roles and, unlike in much later movies, here he is perfectly normal and doesn't overact and isn't annoying.
I really didn't take to Ardant's performance, though I suspect the script shares the blame for that; she comes off less as a real person than a male construct.The story--Ardant and her husband move next door to Gerard Depardieu and his wife, the two having had an intense affair a decade earlier--is well told and holds interest, but the details are often unconvincing and there's an off-putting tone to the whole affair.
Later in the film, when the truth is exposed, and by this time the two have become adulterous lovers in the present, the respective spouses are maddeningly reasonable about the whole thing.
Gerard Depardieu is wooden and unconvincing as Ardant's lover.
This was a really unusual and very interesting film--especially since the way the movie ends took me by surprise.
Like some other Truffaut films (such as Confidentially Yours), the main theme of the movie MUST be sustained by the actors behaving, at least initially, in a very improbable manner.