Movie review – “Bed and Board” (1970) **1/2

There is a sort of masochistic school among some auteurs when illuminating their lives to have their re-created selves be these “oh I’m such a bad person, I have affairs and my wife she’s so perfect and isn’t life sad”. The first half of this involves newly married life between Antoine and his new wife, and it ambles along charmingly enough, with little plot (Antoine goes job hunting again and gets another wacky job – parking model boats), set in a neo family of an apartment block with some colourful neighbours, and plenty of shots of Claudette Jane’s legs. It gets more serious in the second half, when the wife has a baby (powerful scene where she says she doesn’t want him to stay with her the night after she’s given birth), and Antoine has an affair with a Japanese lady (another powerful scene when the wife finds out – I didn’t think that sort of thing bothered the French?). Antoine acts like such a prick (he even goes back to prostitutes again) that even considerable charm of Jean-Pierre Leaud starts to fade. I can’t help wish Truffaut had based the character a bit more on himself – at least he’d be doing something interesting like making films or being a critic instead of moping around like a loser (he does start to write a novel).