Christmas 1976, we are in a cemetery. A funeral attended exclusively by women is in progress. It is Bertrand Morane who is being honored here. In flashbacks, based on an autobiographical book written by Morane, Truffaut tells us the story of a man who desired women and was desired by them.
Truffaut is best known as one of the co-founders of the Novuelle Vague for films such as Les Quatre Cents Coups or Jules et Jim. However, with L’Homme qui aimait les femmes we present a highlight of his later career, in which he again refers to some of his earlier strengths. Light-footed and quite funny, Truffaut tells us a story about love and its impossibility. Morane, embodied in an extremely charming way by Charles Denner, can never completely escape his loneliness despite the many love affairs, which means that the film is pervaded by a beautiful melancholy that makes the viewer thoughtful and in the end leaves the cinema with a smile.
Jerome Bewersdorff