Les choses de la vie (1970)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Claude Sautet

Writers:

Sandro Continenza (dialogue: Italian version)
Jean-Loup Dabadie (adaptation)

Release Date:

13 March 1970 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Pierre, a successful expert in building highways has a traffic accident. Being seriously wounded, he...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Flashback Sequence | Based On Novel

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Piccoli	...	Pierre Bérard
Romy Schneider	...	Hélène
Gérard Lartigau	...	Bertrand Bérard
Jean Bouise	...	François
Boby Lapointe	...	Le bétailleur
Hervé Sand	...	Le camionneur
Jacques Richard	...	L'infirmier
Betty Beckers	...	L'autostoppeuse
Dominique Zardi	...	L'autostoppeur
Gabrielle Doulcet	...	Guitte
Roger Crouzet	...	Le promoteur
Henri Nassiet	...	M. Bérard, le père de Pierre
Claude Confortès	...	Le docteur
Jerry Brouer	...	Le prétendant
Jean Gras	...	Georges, le chef de chantier

Also Known As:

L'amante (Italy)
The Little Things in Life (Hong Kong: English title)
The Things of Life (USA)
These Things Happen (USA)

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

France | Italy | Switzerland

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Hong Kong:I | Sweden:15 | USA:GP | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, France

Company:

Fida Cinematografica

Trivia:

Six months'preparation. The sequence of the accident took ten days to film. The film inspired a song performed by Frida Boccara (theme by Telemann): "L'année où Piccoli jouait les Choses de la Vie"

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: In the car crash scene, the stunt double for Michel Piccoli is seen wearing brown gloves in close-ups. However Piccoli is bare-handed while driving.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Exponerad (1971)

Soundtrack:

la chanson d'hélène

Fork in the road

A typical 70's drama, something that still gets its way when it comes to touch that emotional key in us (Or some of us) and makes us long for that passionate love story, without a tragic end of course. Through a filter of pastel tones, Sautet portrays the typical struggle many have put themselves through to fork onto a secondary sentimental route in life, thinking they can have it both ways. Albeit its apparent sappy tone, Les Choses de la Vie is an intense mature story of love and sacrifice, a double one at the end.

I find European dramas very attractive, perhaps because they portray a kind of no-frills passion that is very hard to come across nowadays, both in movies and in reality. A movie like this surely has its clichés, the dual life, the regrets, the tragic death but in this movie Sautet is a wizard in enfolding the viewer with a very bitter-sweet sequence of happy yet solemn flashbacks. Pedro Lazaga's Largo Retorno (1975) happens to be similar in the way the relationship between the two main characters comes to an end (The memories, the sorrow, the death), granted in Les Choses de la Vie there is a three-way story. Both Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider fit perfectly in the above scheme of things.

Just like in Largo Retorno, a very somber yet passionate baroque score complements the entire movie from leaving us with a soggy handkerchief at the end.