FIVE DAY LOVER / L’Amant de cinq jours

 

World Premiere (restored version) • Romantic Comedy • France, 1961

DCP • 1.66 • mono • B&W • 95 min

Directed by: Philippe de Broca

Written by: Daniel Boulanger, Philippe de Broca

Cinematography: Jean Penzer

Film Editing: Laurence Mery-Clark

Original Score: Georges Delerue

Produced by: Filmsonor Marceau, Mondex et Cie, Les Films Ariane

Cast: Jean Seberg (Claire), Micheline Presle (Madeleine), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Antoine), François Périer (Georges) 

International Sales: TF1 International

US distributor: Cohen Media Group • cohenmedia.net 

 

By 1961, thanks to Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, Jean Seberg was the embodiment of the modern liberated woman in French New Wave circles. She carries that mantle into this gauzy romp as Claire, a romantically adventurous wife and mother who meets Antoine, a carefree womanizer, at a fashion show hosted by Claire’s best friend Madeleine. Claire welcomes Antoine’s advances, and they are soon enjoying weekday afternoon assignations at Antoine’s swanky bachelor pad, despite the little detail that the winsome Antoine happens to be Madeleine’s kept lover. Claire doesn’t seem to mind deceiving Madeleine, or even leaving her staid husband at home to watch the kids. What really bothers her is the fact that Antoine is beginning to talk about marriage.

 

There has been something of a reassessment of the early work of writer/director Philippe de Broca in recent years. Between his big budget blockbusters like Swords of Blood (1962) starring frequent collaborator Jean-Paul Belmondo, and his adventure comedies like That Man From Rio (1964), de Broca’s light-hearted romantic comedies have often been overlooked. Co-written with Daniel Boulanger, Five Day Lover was the last of three such films that de Broca made just after working as an assistant to Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut. Although these films bear only a stylish resemblance to the classic works of the Nouvelle Vague, they freeze-frame the mores of a sexual revolution that appears charmingly naïve in retrospect. In 1966, de Broca wrote and directed King of Hearts, a personal film that was a commercial disappointment at the time, but is now widely considered to be his masterpiece. De Broca continued to make films, mostly comedies, until his death in 2004. One of his last films, On Guard, premiered at COLCOA 1998.

 

Quotes:

“Toys with the notion of illusion as the essence of romance.”

- Bosley Crowther NEW YORK TIMES

“Brings together a remarkable quartet of acting talent, with two well-established stars Micheline Presle and François Périer playing an amusing game of mixed doubles with fresh and feisty newcomers Jean Seberg and Jean-Pierre Cassel.”

- James Travers FRENCH FILM SITE