La presqu'île

It's always a pleasure to see Gérard Blain ,who could have been the French James Dean,but whose career quickly waned after the early sixties ;his work as a director is unfairly neglected .

Unfortunately ,although present from start to finish,he has almost nothing to do in "la presqu'ile" (=the peninsula) in which his part is to "passive" to give him a single moment to shine .

Plot: A man is to meet his German lover at the railway station ;but he learns that she will arrive later in the night. During the long waiting , he remembers his past :his childhood,his relationship with the missing woman: is their love so strong? Aren't their cultures different? Can their love be put to the test of time? What shall he say when he meets her tonight? Is it so easy to cross the platform and fall into her arms?

Based on a Julien Gracq's short story ,it recalls André Belvaux 's "rendez-vous à Bray" (1971) adapted from the same writer ,in which the meeting between two friends never occurs .

In both movies streams of consciousness, frames of mind ,in an ancient mansion for the Belgian director , on the road in this "presqu'ile ": for it is primarily a road movie,to be precise a "car movie" for the principal haphazardly wanders along the roads of Brittany at his wheel ; landscapes bring back memories told in voice over by the hero .