Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married to Franca and father of Sabine. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stay away from her.
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CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
Successful and ostensibly happily married “Pierre” (Jean Desailly) is flying to Lisbon to give a lecture on Balzac when the stewardess “Nicole” (Françoise Dorléac) catches his eye. It turns out that she is staying in the same hotel as him, and so after a trip up in the lift with her - that seems to take forever - he decides to call her from his room and ask her to meet for a drink. After a bit of toing and froing, and despite the fact that he was supposed to be returning to Paris at noon the next day, they agree to meet and are soon having an affair. He’s a publisher who is often travelling away from home, so his wife “Franca” (Nelly Benedetti) isn’t unused to his absences, but of course it can only be a matter of time before he is rumbled. The sexually charged elements of this are seriously underplayed, and indeed Desailly’s “Pierre” is possibly the least sexual character in the film as he clearly shifts his emotional allegiances to his new love. The question is, does she reciprocate? Does she love him because he is forbidden fruit? Does she love him at all? As the denouement looms, what we watch here is quite a brutal dissection of the mentality of adulatory. It’s toxicity on “Franca”; the effects on her mental state are writ increasingly but subtly large. The selfishness of “Pierre” throughout renders him easy to dislike and though there is a curious degree of chemistry between him and “Nicole”, it was ultimately that between himself and his betrayed wife that makes this simmer. There’s not always a great deal of dialogue and some of the plot advances are presented to us without us necessarily knowing just how we got there, but there’s something analytical about a film that includes some light-heartedness amidst it’s critique on the lives and loves of a thoughtless individual. Oh, and if only Orly was so easy to use nowadays!
