COMMENTS:

A prostitute prattles on and on about the limitations of her services as she leads Antoine Doinel up to a room in Fran?ois Truffaut?s BAISERS VOL?S (STOLEN KISSES, 1968). When they finally reach the room, the prostitute matronly turns on the water in the sink and insists on washing his genitals before they begin. Doinel turns and strides back down the staircase, and off-screen, to select another fille de joie. Within seconds, he and the new girl repeat the climb up the rounded stair to complete their business.

This sequence is the culmination of an elegant extended boom shot of Doinel crossing a busy Paris street to backalley bordello, his first stop after being dishonourably discharged from the Army. Though New Wavy in its revision of dominant (read: Hollywood) modes of storytelling, these are no more Godard?s whores than they are of the hooker-with-heart-of-gold variety. The sequence is in fact just a light comic digression, with elements of physical comedy, akin to slapstick (although here in a much more pacifist form), brought to the fore and given graceful, measured (read: stylized) prominence.

That words seem to belabour the sequence, speaks to the role of film style here. In rhythm, theme, and tone, it has the feel and shape of a pop song?brief, breezy and full of life. Truffaut, when prodded by an interviewer, conceded that the film as a whole was something like ?Que reste-t-il de nos amours,? the Charles Trenet song playing over the opening credits from which the film derives its title. In this sequence, the repeated ascent and descent of the staircase with its mounting promise of sexual gratification (or display?) is something like a song verse building to a chorus. In some ways, it even follows the emotional trajectory of the pop song structure, but in a purely cinematic manner. The dialogue is incidental and there?s no swell in the score, just a palpable sense of movement. The camera is often so far ahead of Doinel that we don?t see him at all. Like the pop song, this is pure sentiment?an ode to youth, its idealism, na?vet?, and feral sexuality.

[ By Gareth Hedges • November 11, 2004 ]