MovieChat Forums > Baisers volés Discussion > man at the end of the film

man at the end of the film


Who was that man who was following Christine? What was his significance?

reply

he was in love with her

reply

I think that the man was a reflection of Antoine's embarrasing desires and obessions with love throughout the film. When Antoine declares, "yes, he was crazy", we see a major theme of the movie: that love makes you do crazy things.

reply

I agree. The Stranger and his behavior remind us that Antoine was nuts. We adore him because he was cute, he was the protagonist, and he had a history with Christine. And a history with us in the audience. We've watched him freak out on some highly inappropriate woman in a symphony concert. We know how he ticks and expect him to be that way.

But the view from 30,000 feet, free of our attachments to him -- which the Stranger provides -- is that Doniel's love techniques are immature and obsessive.

Sometimes that's enough because you only have to win by one point. That is, you only have to woo the woman and win. If she is not taken aback or offended by what you do, then it doesn't matter. Life goes on, babies get made, etc.




If I run a race by the rules, then shut up about drugs. ,,, Floyd Landis

reply

I think so too. But there is another thing I'd like to point out.

This stranger could be Antoine at the beginning of the movie. The first thing we see Antoine doing after being discharged from the army is visiting a brothel, where he looks positively delighted and sheepish in front of the girls. By the end of the movie, when he visits a brothel again, he acts formal, distant and businesslike, handing over the money and telling the girl to keep her clothes on. What happened there in between is Antoine has gone through a lot of change and come to a realization. He's learned along the way that idolizing women from a distance, he inflated his sexual desires and thought they were something like love. But being involved with a few women changed his perspective; he's come to appreciate the crucial differences between love and lust. So, similarly, this stranger only idolized Christine; he never ever spoke to her. Yet he confesses that he is in love with her having learned everything about her. The man is crazy.

Here is another idea I want to throw out there. The stranger's obsession and "love" from a distance reminds me of the voyeurism of our celebrity obsessed culture. This guy is the typical product of that culture, perhaps in a smaller scale. He has no life of his own and all he does is to obsessively follow the lives of his beloved, Christine. Is Truffaut trying to tell us something?

reply

Antoine goes to the brothel twice in the film for two very different reasons. As he is released from military prison a fellow inmate shouts "Get laid for us", Antoine says that he will, the prisoner then shouts "We'll be thinking of you at 5:00". We then see Antoine running to the brothel checking his watch. He attempts to have a romantic encounter, but is treated like a customer (the girl refuses his kisses, will only get undressed for extra money and only after she has clincally washed his member) before telling her to forget it. As he leaves he sees another girl walking a customer out, he follows back up checking his watch the whole way (when we see him running out of the brothel the clock tower tolls 5, meaning he was still a bit eager). The second time is after the funeral of his father figure Henri, and is naturally in a more contemplative mood. He confesses to his boss who answers "It's a perfectly natural reaction. Making love reaffirms that we are alive." Antoine is very passionate, but has no discipline. He's in love with the idea of love, but is unable to receive or give it. The stranger at the end is not only passionate but disciplined. He walks to her to profess his love then walks away, Antoine by contrast is always seen running to or away from love. Volkan U makes a very good point with the last paragraph which might be confirmed in the next film Bed and Board in which Antoine is fixated on a japanese girl while Christine fantasizes about Rudolph Nureyev.

reply

This last scene from the movie is jarring and beautiful. Try to unravel the thought that went behind it. From how I see it, Truffaut made a reversal of what we call "breaking the fourth wall". The man in the shot is we, the audience, that enter the frame to narrate our feelings.
By the end of the movie, we fall in love with Christine, grow fond of her. At the same time we see her innocence and naivity with her relationship with Antoine. With passage of time, we have come to know what, and how misinterpreted Antoine's version of love is. We can see that it would be transient, like all such loves are. It is our loving concern for Christine that makes us enter the frame and literally speak out to her. We want to keep her forever.

reply

In the DVD commentary, Claude Jade said that Francois Truffaut told her that he got the idea for the stranger from seeing a man in a restaurant staring at a young woman at another table, who was sharing her meal with her boyfriend.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12)

reply


I read this was the 3rd film with the same main actor of either 5 or 7 movies. So this film was like the middle of a series. Maybe the man has some significance in the next movie.

reply

[deleted]

The confession of love that the odd gentleman makes to Christine was genuinely affecting and touching (at least, on the surface). He says all the right things and the most romantic things. But instead of being swept off her feet by that beautiful (and somewhat cliched) confession, Christine brushes away the man as "crazy" almost immediately after he's turned his back to the couple.

And she's probably right... that whole situation, while cute and charming in fairy tales, doesn't really feel like the behaviour of a "normal" person in reality.

But the significance of that scene, as other posters have pointed out, lies in the contrast between the gentleman and Antoine. The man spent his days stalking the woman he loved while all of Antoine's "stalking" was part of a job that required him to do so, a job that eventually resulted with him recklessly sleeping with his boss's wife (while the girl he really had feelings for waited outside his apartment). The man was (or at least, seemed) utterly sure that Christine was his soul mate while Antoine avoids the girl (perhaps, out of guilt... but hard to believe given the boy's selfishness...) until she practically "engineers" the sexual encounter which leads to their engagement.

Yet, ironically, the man is labeled as crazy... for what? For knowing what he wants? For being confident enough to claim it? For his emotional maturity? For being sure of himself?

Maybe that's why Antoine is a little dumbfounded by the encounter, glancing back at the man uncomfortably while clutching his fiance as they walk in the opposite direction. Maybe, it's because the man's sudden proclamation of love was so darn weird. Or perhaps, it was because Antoine realised that there was something genuine and sincere about the man. Perhaps, he realised that the man possessed certain qualities that Antoine himself does not possess. And perhaps, it was all of these things.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

reply