My title is borrowed from an album composed by the famous french singer Renaud who dedicated it in memory of his late friend, the famous french humorist and actor, Coluche who faced the same fate than the one depicted in the movie. In a way, the title of the movie says it all with wisdom: « the facts of life ». So, it's true: accidents happen , it's sad, it's meaningless, it's always too soon but we better accept this threat and live with it back in the mind. For example, i knew a young coworker who died suddenly in the office from a heart attack and in a way, it motivates me to leave my studio clean and to shower neatly every day as i wouldn't like to leave the feeling i lived as a pig if i had to go prematurely. In addition, the movie is a positive illustration of my « FFM » rule, exposed in my last review. Here, those « first five minutes » are clearly interesting and give the urge to see what happens. Sure, like « Carlito's way », you know at first how the movie will (almost) end but this premonition adds however a lot to the drama. It's all the more gripping that time is really distorted in the movie : it's slow, fast-forwarded, back to the past or to the future. At last, released in 1970, you can notice that french society was stricter then (for example, the law to free divorce was voted 5 years later !) and the charm of this old movie is that the cast is taken for granted : in other words, I just watch them for what they do on screen. Then, acting artists weren't polluted by promotions, selling images, pseudo social commitment or private life news. It's all the more essential that Romy is full of sensibility and Piccoli has a great stature too.

Above all the memories, there is one with a definite form... mostly in the Love we take to our graves. This love becomes the wellspring of our final images- our reconciliation with longings and regrets. Les Choses De la Vie is centered around a tragedy, an automobile accident.Shot in dazzling slow motion and multiple camera angles, the accident is the Spine on which the Book of Michel (Michel Piccoli) rests. A lot has been mentioned about the simplicity of the story but it is the construction and arrangement of plot elements that leaves a lump in one's throat.A cast that boasts a combined filmography of everyone from Fellini, Tavernier, Antonioni and Demy to Chahine, is the Coup that director Sautet landed. The Film opens with shots of a car in flames, the victim, witnesses and bystanders. The accident is reconstructed in parallel with Michel's life. He is a man of means, a successful architect on the verge of moving to another country. His young mistress Helene(Romy Schneider)wants a house on an island unused by others unlike the one owned by his wife Catherine. Catherine (Lea Massari)is also a colleague who has her own lover. The first hint of searing emotion involves the mention of a favorite family dog, the last the family had. Michel's son Bertrand immerses himself in inventing motorized circuitry that can replace pets in people's homes. What's left between father and son except gratuitous enquiries? This thread is picked up to show a conflict between Michel and Helene at a restaurant. Will Michel chose a vacation with his son over Helene's pressing need to leave the country? Life's like a corvee to work and only a 'young wine that rarely travels' can make up for 32 years of friendship changing for a woman. Michel's love is questioned even as he acknowledges Helene's Physical hold on him. An especially evocative scene involves the engine and the road.. the only true sounds in a difficult silence as they drive back from a party. The lines are pithy and loaded with identity. Sample this.... "You love me 'cause I'm here. You'll be lost if you cross the street." Michel drops Helene off and journeys on, perhaps on an adventure. He has nothing to say because he's still clutching on to civility. The rain brings it all on, the music soars. Michel is lost in his reminiscences. A flood of sweet memories borne from pain, released to counter a new heartache. He tries to undo the showdown with Helene... in solitude, in bitter pain. He tries to explain it in a letter but leaves it unmailed.Self reproach drives him to make a futile call. The rest of the film moves on the light,airy wings of Philippe Sarde's music score. The background assumes various shades as we ride along, passing by a joyous nuptial celebration and culminating in the horrific minutae of the wreck; pulverized steel and a man's life overturned in 5 seconds. The final few frames are like a surreal homage to Michel's being. His subconscious rises as the car burns... a faint murmur to leave behind Life's damages. The victim is like a caged animal, open to interpretations from onlookers. He must resolve to stay awake even as an innocuous Priest chants the last rites. His mind is awake but people can't tell. Regret alarms his soul and brings him back to consciousness, if only for a while. It's not the pain, no mortality can stop a longing soul. But this where the Inner Voice capitulates to the legerdemain of shifting shapes in a dream. The voice rises but once. "...not to live alone," it says. "The Musician has fallen asleep" and the deep gush of the Ocean takes over. P.S. 'The Song of Helene' has an ethereal quality... almost like a fragile Cosmic Thread that holds Michel back on Earth.

It is an experience. Rush, subtle, delicate and strange. A form of catharsis and source of restless questions.It is a beautiful film but not as aesthetic show or as object of loisir. In fact, it is a definition of life, social relations, ambiguity of love and search of happiness beyond classical definitions or Freudian symbols.In each life important it is pieces of puzzle. The respect for game rules, the science to be the favorite image of the other, the words as sentimental trap, the desire as essence of duty.For everybody the role of axis in family, society, hate or respect, expectations and illusions is more relevant than interior life. So, the masks are only way to be answer to expectations of other.It is a splendid film for the acting of Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli.For the Sautet mark.For dialogs and lights, for powerful suggestion art, for its message and definition of second life, for atmosphere and delicate art of existence sense discovery. About last hours and projection of lost world. About final silence and about shadows of the others. About structure of hope.

This is one of the few movies in which I thought I detected a stroke of genius. At the core of it is an automobile accident, filmed from many angles, in close up, from a distance, in slow motion, with natural sound, with music. Then the whole story up to the crash is sort of rewound and played again, interspersed with flashbacks in the flashbacks. As I write this, it all sounds very technical, abstract and arty, but in fact it is deeply poetic. I am someone who is quick to say French movies are generally overpraised, but here everything works so well, is so painstakingly beautiful. Nobody should regard it as spoiler when I tell here that the main character dies in the end – but what a way to go! I can specially recommend this movie to people who like to get off their tobacco habit. All characters smoke continuously, you will get a sore throat without lighting a single cigarette yourself.