Confidentially Yours (1984)

FINALLY, Sunday! is one of the many films made by French auteur Francois Truffaut, shot in black and white. This one's a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Hitchcockian themes throughout, and it has a lightness of touch similar to Hitch's work of the 1930s. However, in the heavy hands of Truffaut I found it something of a chore to watch; the director's approach is to eke out every little bit of every little scene and the result is long-winded and oddly seriously despite the lightness of the subject matter. It's as if the director has been so painstaking that all the fun is taken out of the production.

We open on a dusk-filled marsh-like field of France. A man is crouched down in position for duck/bird hunting, when from behind him a man approaches and shoots him. Such begins Francois Truffaut's "Confidentially Yours." Fanny Ardant is a secretary who has for some time been in love with her employer. When he is under suspicion by the police for the killing, she sets out to help him. Through a series of Hitchcockian developments and scenarios, they are thrust together. More murders occur, even as he is trying to keep an arm's length away from the police. I thought I had more to say, but this was a very enjoyable film that got more complicated as it went along. At times, it felt very tongue-in-cheek and in others the imminent danger was intense. But make sure you see this (on TV or DVD) with subtitles you can read. The top of the second line was at the bottom of the screen, barely making it readable. Otherwise, a very well-made film with good lead actors and a haunting mysteriousness about it make this a very rewarding experience.

This was the last of Truffaut's films and he died less than two months after its completion. I think the rush job at the end of this film seems to suggest that it was quickly finished as not much thought seemed to be put into it to tie everything together. Vivement Dimanche is a murder mystery set in modern times but it has been done in black and white to give the appearance of antiquity. The movie is timeless in the way that props have been used and that most of the scenes occur indoors rather than out. As one watches the film it is understandable if one were to think that Vivement Dimanche was a much older film than it actually is.A man's friend is shot dead while both are out hunting, but the man does not see it and all he knows is that his car has been left wide open. When he returns to his real-estate office he is brought in for questioning and learns that his wife was having and affair with the victim and he is the prime suspect. He confronts his wife after receiving an anonymous and abusive phone call but forgives her. He then returns to the police station and during this time his wife is murdered. Thus he goes into hiding while his secretary, who was on the verge of being fired because she allegedly had a fight with his wife, decides to help him out and clear his name.This film is a real mystery as we learn that his wife doesn't run a beauty parlour in Nice but rather a brothel. As we dig deeper we find that there are some strange characters working at the cinema that turn up in the brothel and we also learn that the man's wife is not really who she claims to be. In some ways this movie is quite far fetched because the main character seems to be quite ignorant to the deep plots that all of his apparently close friends are tied up to. His wife's name is not her name and the marriage that he thought was real is only fake. His friend is a major player in a prostitution ring and his lawyer seems to have a lot to do with it as well.As is typical of mysteries, the real criminal must be one of the characters that we know in the movie. There is little evidence brought up during the movie to point to a particular character, nor does any seem to make much of an appearance. In one way Truffaut has managed to keep us guessing as to what is going on, which I though was good. I was riveted to the movie to find out what was actually happening, but I felt the end was very disappointing. It seemed to throw all of the interesting threads that had appeared into a basket with no common tie. Truffaut could have extended the movie a bit further so as to create a much plausible ending and dropped more evidence to point to the real murderer than the lame trick he uses and the murderer confessing straight out anyway.

Once I heard the delightful music upon the opening credits and Fanny Ardent's heels clicking down the avenue-I was immediately hooked on the film-who wouldn't be? I love that he goes full circle with the same tunes at the end of the film while the choir children are shuffling the camera man's lens around like a hockey puck! Fanny is just a gem to watch-one is just mesmerized by her intoxicating beauty and her (as one of the policeman puts it) her "Miss Know it All"-ism. Once commenter on this site compared the film to Woody's "Manhattan Murder Mystery" which in and of itself contained many Hitchcockian references. I see Ardent as possibly the "Keaton" like character-mischievous-looking deeper and deeper-opening up "Pandoras Box" getting into trouble for for justice! As fans of Truffaut we all know this was indeed his tribute/homage to Hitch and a great one indeed-not only to him but to film noir all together. One can only think if Truffaut had lived longer what other genres he might have explored since this was such a wonderful example of not only the genre itself but also of his brilliant style of film-making for generations to share forever. God bless Francois Truffaut!