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Les Choses de la Vie (1969)

Director: Claude Sautet

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From Time Out Film Guide

A not uninteresting attempt to make a film about ordinary, everyday minutiae, with Piccoli as an average sensual man, vaguely torn between a demanding mistress (Schneider) and an ex-wife (Massari) to whom he still feels bound. Quietly and deftly, Sautet sketches in the portrait of a man gradually becoming aware that he is coming to a crossroads in his life. But since the opening sequence reveals that he is shortly to die in a car crash, his attempt to make some decision about his life is much ado about nothing - which is precisely the point of the film. Difficult to make a film about banality without being boring in the process, but Sautet all but pulls it off, thanks to a beautifully understated performance from Piccoli which manages to extract a whole lifetime of meaning from a simple gesture like lighting a cigarette, and to illuminate the film's meticulously detailed naturalistic surface.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Claude Sautet

Cast: Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider, Lea Massari, Gérard Lartigau, Jean Bouise, Henri Nassiet full cast

Duration: 89 mins


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