Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases


La Chambre Verte (1978)

Director: François Truffaut

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Adapted from two Henry James short stories, The Green Room stars Truffaut himself as an ageing provincial journalist on a failing periodical, solitary despite his housekeeper and (inexplicably) deaf-mute child, as he looks back from the late 1920s at the two traumas that have shaped his life - the massacre of World War I in which he lost most of his friends and acquaintances, and the death of his beloved wife. A story full of Gothic promise. The similar binding of personal and historical events, of obsessively remembered love and morbid longing for death, were elements that pulsed vitally - if sentimentally - in the earlier Jules et Jim. And the failure of Chambre Verte is technically all too simple. Truffaut's lack of range as an actor is not helped by the script's purple prose. But one suspects the real problems to be much larger: the human face in this film has become clouded and curiously vague - neither direct enough to stand for itself (as it did in the earlier films), nor sufficiently eloquent to carry as much metaphysical baggage as the script implies. Truffaut has made more than his share of maverick and self-critical films; his later retreat into period pieces and production values becomes all the more regrettable.

Author: CA

Time Out Film Guide


What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields




Most popular on this site


Top Stories

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?

The 10 worst date movies

The 10 worst date movies

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas

10 unlikely badboy biopics

10 unlikely badboy biopics

Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing