Gérard Depardieu : The Woman Next Door (1981)

“The lady Next Door” opens as an easy story regarding 2 homes. they're adjoining to 1 another. The story gets an excellent deal less straight forward when we have a tendency to meet the inhabitants of the homes. The house on the proper is lived in by Depardieu, a big, friendly lunk of a bloke United Nations agency loves his married woman and youngsters. The house on the left is purchased by associate traffic controller, United Nations agency moves in together with his new bride, compete by Fanny Ardant. The catch is that Gerard Depardieu and Ardant were lovers eight or 9 years past. It was, we gather, a furious relationship. Gerard Depardieu learns secondhand that Ardant has delineate him as a "violent frenzied depressive." nonetheless things look therefore calm on the residential district surface, because the 2 couples meet and exchange civilities. the person and also the lady create one crucial error, however, right at the commencement. they are doing not tell their several spouses regarding their recent relationship. If that they had, matters may right away are defused into embarrassment, courtesy, and every one those different enemies of passion. however as a result of they keep their past a secret, they bestow which means on that. They tacitly agree that there's still a past, which they are doing still share a secret. In no time the least bit, they are meeting in city for sticky afternoons in one among those French hotels wherever the caretaker has seen everything.
This situation may be a example one for Francois Truffaut, the French director United Nations agency has with success created over twenty films while not nonetheless depicting a healthy, mature relationship between a person and a lady.

All of his lovers area unit doomed by the demons of their passion, and by underlying streaks of violence (in his serious films) and airheaded inability to create a commitment (in his comedies). Stanley Kauffman, the critic for the New Republic, brusquely ascertained shortly past that Francois Truffaut solely has 3 subjects men smitten with being smitten, girls United Nations agency kill men and kids.There are not several scenes with the youngsters during this film. however the male and also the feminine area unit definitely smitten with love: they appear additional fascinated by the actual fact of their affair than by one another. and they are tragically out of synchronize. they can not love one another at the same time. each apparently has to be rejected by the opposite to completely arouse his or her passion. (The show encompasses a happy ending, I guess, therein it finally ends in an exceedingly tie.) Francois Truffaut is on record in concert of the best admirers of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, and “The lady Next Door” may be a deeply Hitchcockian film, therein its real subjects area unit guilt, passion and terrible consequences of a sin that starts out tiny. (We will nearly imagine Sir Alfred's ghost reciting the lesson: "You will see what will happen to you after you don\'t seem to be smart boys and ladies.") the 2 lovers area unit criminals, of course, adulterers, cheaters, liars, as practiced at concealing their emotions as a veteran con artist. And, as Alfred did, Francois Truffaut will an excellent job of giving America surface pictures that area unit nearly starkly straightforward, whereas to a lower place the surface there is a labyrinthine tangle of passions. that is what is best regarding the film. Francois Truffaut shows America one issue and implies another. Toward the tip, his characters appear to be doing precisely the opposite of what we have a tendency to guess they are very doing. The very good logic of the last scene is all the simpler as a result of, gee, we have a tendency to did not recognize that was however she felt however, of course, we did.