Search - The Soft Skin on DVD

Paris is not for us!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 09/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A successful businessman and affective husband meets an alluring airline stewardess in a flight to Lisboan. And as product of a kind invitation to dinner will emerge a torrid romance that will become an unstoppable passion, with the expected tragic consequences.

Truffaut uplifts this simple and so many times told before story to unexpected levels. The employment of the camera as a scrutinizing eye, makes we become true peeping Tom; the poetic of the images, the sublime visual eroticism in sequences of enraptured charm, the accurate use of the melancholic music, suggests and warns step by step by Hitchcokian paths, where the disturbed soul of this man never equals to the steeled determination of his lover. For her, that affair means much more than a random encounter; while his wife begins to suspect something's wrong among them.

Truffaut avoids to fall in the circumstantial anecdote, spicing of audacious narrative innovations, where the social conventions really have enmeshed this man and led him into a deep end, due his lack of self conviction and vital determination to admit the consequences once he crossed the line.

One of the main factors that nourish the narrative vigor of the film, resides in the theatrical influence (Jean Anouilh and William Shakespeare) smartly bounded with suspenseful moments that conform an outstanding and original proposal.

In fact, forty three years have elapsed since this movie was released and (with some little details here and there) the narration has not aged a bit.

And although I am not a twenty four hours hard fan of Truffaut, I have to acknowledge we are in presence of one of his best artistic achievements of his prestigious career.

Inquire and then convince by yourself. "La peau doce" is a sumptuous masterpiece!

"

Keeps you simultaneously glued to the narrative and fearful

From Elder | 10/14/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Both intriguing and frustrating - the latter because you want to reach into the screen and slap the protagonist on the side of the head. The plot seems to go mostly nowhere, yet is thoroughly engrossing. Character development is not thorough, but situational development is both thorough and meticulous. A great psychological exposition. Unfortunately, almost no extras."