Mississippi Mermaid (1969)
(La Sirène du Mississippi)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/scope 123m
Director: François Truffaut
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet
Synopsis:
A tobacco producer on Réunion island procures a bride for himself by correspondence, but the girl who arrives is beautiful beyond expectations. Indeed, she is not the girl at all and before long has fleeced him of his money. Thus begins an investigation and pursuit which takes him back to France, setting him on a path of self-destruction.
Review:
Misleadingly titled for international release (Siren and mermaid are not the same thing; the Mississippi is the name of the vessel on which she arrives at Réunion), this deals with the follies men will commit for the love of a beautiful woman, a theme to which Truffaut would return again and again. There is still a touch of New Wave freshness in the angles and use of panning shots rather than editing, but as the director's subjects became increasingly novelettish one is less tolerant of clumsy or improbable detail: the murder, the dropping of the record, for example, are revealingly where he is most visibly aping Hitchcock. We are left with the captivating Deneuve who plays an enigma poised between eroticism and frigidity, vulnerability and callousness. Ultimately we do not know whether she is leading him to a snowy death at the end, or continued torment in Switzerland, and that is as it should be.
(La Sirène du Mississippi)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/scope 123m
Director: François Truffaut
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet
Synopsis:
A tobacco producer on Réunion island procures a bride for himself by correspondence, but the girl who arrives is beautiful beyond expectations. Indeed, she is not the girl at all and before long has fleeced him of his money. Thus begins an investigation and pursuit which takes him back to France, setting him on a path of self-destruction.
Review:
Misleadingly titled for international release (Siren and mermaid are not the same thing; the Mississippi is the name of the vessel on which she arrives at Réunion), this deals with the follies men will commit for the love of a beautiful woman, a theme to which Truffaut would return again and again. There is still a touch of New Wave freshness in the angles and use of panning shots rather than editing, but as the director's subjects became increasingly novelettish one is less tolerant of clumsy or improbable detail: the murder, the dropping of the record, for example, are revealingly where he is most visibly aping Hitchcock. We are left with the captivating Deneuve who plays an enigma poised between eroticism and frigidity, vulnerability and callousness. Ultimately we do not know whether she is leading him to a snowy death at the end, or continued torment in Switzerland, and that is as it should be.
(La Sirène du Mississippi)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/scope 123m
Director: François Truffaut
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet
Synopsis:
A tobacco producer on Réunion island procures a bride for himself by correspondence, but the girl who arrives is beautiful beyond expectations. Indeed, she is not the girl at all and before long has fleeced him of his money. Thus begins an investigation and pursuit which takes him back to France, setting him on a path of self-destruction.
Review:
Misleadingly titled for international release (Siren and mermaid are not the same thing; the Mississippi is the name of the vessel on which she arrives at Réunion), this deals with the follies men will commit for the love of a beautiful woman, a theme to which Truffaut would return again and again. There is still a touch of New Wave freshness in the angles and use of panning shots rather than editing, but as the director's subjects became increasingly novelettish one is less tolerant of clumsy or improbable detail: the murder, the dropping of the record, for example, are revealingly where he is most visibly aping Hitchcock. We are left with the captivating Deneuve who plays an enigma poised between eroticism and frigidity, vulnerability and callousness. Ultimately we do not know whether she is leading him to a snowy death at the end, or continued torment in Switzerland, and that is as it should be.