Baisers volés

Synopsis:
François Truffaut's Baisers volés is the third film in the director's Antoine Doinel series, which begins with young Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) running away from home. Now the lovable everyman is a bushy tailed twentysomething who has just been released from military service. Anxious to jump back into civilian life, he reunites with his girlfriend, Christine (Claude Jade), and starts a job as a night watchman at a hotel. Some hilarious scenes follow as Antoine's combined incompetence, flightiness, and general bad luck land him in some ruthlessly ironic situations. Still, the determined youth perseveres. After he loses his hotel job, Antoine is hired as a private detective, and then as a shoe salesman; he's fired, however, for sleeping with the boss's wife (Delphine Seyrig). And when he's not working, he throws money at whores like there's no tomorrow. (His date with "a very tall woman" epitomizes the quirkiness of French humor.) In an unforgettable scene, the frenzied Antoine stands in front of the mirror emphatically repeating the names of his lovers and then his own. All of these famously original episodes feed into flashbacks from previous films in the series. To complete the picture, BAISÉS VOLÉS includes beautiful shots of Paris--the Sacre Couer, the Arc de Triomphe, and other favorite monuments--that cement the always-romantic nature of Truffaut's works.

Nominations:
Best Foreign Language Film, 1969 Academy Awards, USA
Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film, 1969 Golden Globes, USA

Awards:
Best Film, 1969 French Syndicate of Cinema Critics
Best Director, 1970 National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA
Prix Louis Delluc, 1968 Prix Louis Delluc

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