(1977; French) Auteur François Truffaut's film of the love life of Bertrand Morane (Charles Denner), a middle-aged aeronautics engineer who resided in Montpellier, opens on Christmas Day, 1976, with a funeral attended only by women, his former lovers. Ostensibly we are seeing the events through the eyes of Genevieve (Brigitte Fossey), the editor of his memoir, which impresses her by being "instinctive and sincere" while lacking vanity, and first person to read the book in its entirety (the original typist politely declined to finish the manuscript out of embarrassment); but the ending is being rewritten by every woman who once knew him.

Her own participation and that of Vera (Leslie Caron), a former romance whom he meets by chance in Paris five years after their affair ended, however, are absent from the published pages. He is provoked to begin his memoir after a devastating date with a bra-sales woman, at 41 older than most of the women in his life, who rejects his invitation for more intimacy, saying she prefers young boys for lovers, as well as by the memory of having accidentally discovered his mother's cache of love letters from admirers and their photos.

For Bertrand "women's legs were like compasses that circle the globe, giving the world balance and harmony." In order to find a woman he sees crossing the street, knowing only the license-plate number of her car, he smashes the fender of his own vehicle to press an insurance claim. The car she was driving was a Midi-Car rental; the company policy prohibits giving out information about its clients. Nevertheless, a young woman in the agency provides Ms Desdoit's name and address. Bertrand drives to Bézier to contact the woman only to discover at a rendezvous that not she but her cousin who has departed for Montreal was the one he'd espied in Montpellier. Disappointed Bertrand returns to the young woman at Midi-Car for a tryst.

His morning wake-up caller, whom he names "7 a.m. Aurore," plays coy with him, until she calls him at 3 a.m. for an intimate conversation, informing him of the wealth of details she knows about him. Relenting to his persistent begging for a rendezvous, she agrees to be at a café, but he must be able to pick her out from among 25 women.

Bertrand loves to watch women, the rhythm of their legs coordinated with the motion of their dresses. There are so many, fillies and kittens, but he can't have them all. The affair with Fabiene ended when she told him that he could neither love another nor be loved since he was only in love with the idea of love. Another, Nicole, an usherette in a movie theatre, was a deaf/mute widow.

Bertrand wonders if giving pleasure to someone is possible without eventually hurting her. After a waitress, Liliane, who has done him a favor, gets fired for flipping a rude customer onto the floor, Bertrand arranges a position for her as an operator in his lab. In a restaurant he decides to amuse a married woman bored with her husband by following the couple to their home and then calling her. His further adventures with Delphine Grézel take place in increasingly precarious situations at her instigation, though afterward she says to him: "The things you make me do!" She becomes jealous and finally goes to prison for wounding her husband with a gunshot.

Using a posted advertisement for babysitting services, he hires a woman to come to his apartment: when she finds only a doll in the bed and asks where's the baby, he says: "The baby … it's me." Genevieve tells Bertrand that he has described the new rules in the game of love. He tells her of his wish to be admitted to a mythical island only for women.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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