Bed and Board

Francois Truffaut's third feature in the Antoine Doiniel cycle was Bed and Board, from 1970. It is an absolutely delightful picture that made me laugh several times, and I always had a smile on my face. In some ways it is proto-Woody Allen romantic comedy.

Our hero, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, is now married, to Christine (Claude Jade), his girlfriend from Stolen Kisses. They live in a tight-knit apartment building, where a number of endearing oddballs live, such as the man who won't leave his apartment until Marshall Petain dies.

Antoine and Christine are happy, though poor. She teaches violin lessons. He starts by working in a flower shop, trying to revolutionize a method of dying flowers. That doesn't work, so he ends up at a hydraulics company, steering miniature boats in a small-scale harbor. They have a baby son, and there's some comedy about what his name is. Christine wants Ghislain, but Antoine says that sounds like a baby who wears velvet knickers. He wants Alphonse, but Christine thinks that sounds like a peasant. Since Antoine fills out the paperwork, Alphonse it is.

It is at his new job that Antoine meets a Japanese woman, Kyoko (Hiroko Berghauer). The two enter an affair, though Antoine is quickly tired of it, as he has trouble sitting at those low Japanese tables and the two have nothing to talk about. Christine finds out about it (in a lovely scene involving opening flower petals) and kicks him out. Will true love conquer all?

Truffaut, as with Stolen Kisses, films this as a meringue, not getting heavy but just following his characters as they bounce through the pinball machine. There are a lot of little quirks and eddies, such as when an old policeman says of Christine, "I wouldn't lay her well, but I would lay her often." Jacques Tati makes a cameo, in full Monsieur Hulot costume. There's a running gag involving a fellow who owes money to Antoine, but every time they run into each other, Antoine is owed even more money. And there's a recurring appearance by a guy everyone calls "the Strangler" who turns out to be a TV comedian.

But the heart of the film is the buoyant and funny relationship between Antoine and Christine. If indeed Antoine is part Truffaut, there appears to be self-satirization, such as when Christine says of Antoine's biographical novel, "I don't like this business of writing about your childhood, dragging your parents through the mud. I don't know much, but one thing I do know - if you use art to settle accounts, it's no longer art." Antoine, who again is friendly with Christine's parents (he has a pleasant run-in with her father at a whorehouse) says, "I like all parents. Except my own."

Though the film could be seen as Truffaut's Scenes From a Marriage, it never gets very serious. Christine never really gets that mad at him, and there's always a sense that they will get back together. The film was intended to be the last in series, but ten years later Truffaut and Leaud teamed up one more time.