Themes: Lovers Reunited, Breakups and Divorces, Writer's Life
Main Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marie-France Pisier, Claude Jade, Dorothée, Daniel Mesguich
Release Year: 1979
Country: FR
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
L'Amour en Fuite (Love on the Run) is presented in flashbacks from the previous four movies as Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) meets up with people from his past. As the fifth and final film in the series, Antoine is over 30 years old and meets with his wife, Christine (Claude Jade), to sign the papers for their divorce. As it is the first no-fault divorce of its kind in France, the press surrounds them. In the crowd is also Antoine's past love, Colette (Marie-France Pisier), who is now a lawyer and in love with Xaiver the Librarian (Daniel Mesguich). Antoine is in love with Sabine (Dorothée), but she breaks things off when he ditches her to go see his son at the train station. While he is there, he impulsively joins Colette on a train ride where they recall their past and go through his recent autobiographical novel. Finally, Monsieur Lucien (Julien Bertheau) also re-enters Antoine's life and they visit his mother's grave at Montmartre. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Love on the Run (French: L'amour en fuite) is a 1979 French film directed by François Truffaut. It is Truffaut's fifth and final film about the character Antoine Doinel. A lot of the film is made of a "clip show" of the previous films in the series.
In the previous Antoine Doinel film, Bed and Board, the marriage between Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Christine (Claude Jade) had survived Antoine's infidelity. Love on the Run is set eight years later when Antoine is over thirty. Having an affair with Christine's friend Liliane (Dani) and divorced Christine, he gets a job as a proofreader, and falls in love with Sabine, a record seller. He also writes an autobiographical novel. He meets Colette (Marie-France Pisier), his teenage love who had appeared in Antoine and Colette, and who is now a lawyer. They impulsively go on a train journey and read Antoine's novel. However, later follows a meeting between Colette and Christine: His romance with Sabine is as complicated and unstable, and it turns out that two of his former flames, Christine and Colette, play a pivotal role in helping him find happiness.
"There is evidence of this particular Truffaut-like trust in other scenes. Christine (Claude Jade) and Colette (M.F.Pisier) meet by chance in search of Antoine's new girl friend, Sabine. They are on the staircase of her apartment building, introduce themselves with hesitant politeness - and descend into light to sit on a park bench and at first tentatively, and finally torrentially, discuss and reminisce about the follies of loving Antoine. There is an atmosphere of delighted generosity which is wholly, mysteriously free of sentimentality and which could only be produced by this director." (Wellington Film Society)
