Les Amants

Mon amour…

In 1957, Louis Malle has shot his first film – noir Elevator to the Gallows. For the script of The Lovers Malle had chosen the most banal story – bored socialite, who meets a lover. Nevertheless, the director has turned this banality into a story of collision between false and true love.

The world of Jeanne Tournier consists of falsehood. Every prisoner of this so-called «The Plato Cave» is playing his role: the bored wife, the socialite girlfriend, the cuckold husband, the elegant lover. There is no place for a real feelings, Jeanne cannot even say «tu» to her lover.

Real love storms into the life of Jeanne in a face of Bernard Dubois-Lambert. This young archeologist has nothing in common with her friends and acquaintances; even more, he despises them.  Bernard is capable of thinking out of the box and his love is sincere.

This collision «wakes up» Jeanne and she is ready to leave everything behind. There is no longer a place for hypocritical rules of the so-called «higher society»; Jeanne is finally living a full live and she is ready for the uncertain future.

 Jeanne Moreau, who often called the ideal of intellectual femininity, portrays the transformation of her hero from a petit bourgeois, in the bad sense of this word, to a woman, who breathes freely. This transformation seen by comparing the mechanic dates of Jeanne with lover and sincere love scene with Bernard.

The Lovers is a wonderful film, which could make you think about your life. I strongly recommend to watch The Lovers in French with subtitles, in order to fully appreciate acting of Jeanne Moreau.