Screened as part of NZIFF 2006

We Won't Grow Old Together 1972

Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble

Directed by Maurice Pialat

Maurice Pialat's remarkable second feature is an uncompromising study of the break-up of a relationship, based on his own autobiographical novel. (1972)

France In French with English subtitles
110 minutes 35mm

Director, Screenplay

Photography

Luciano Tovoli

Editors

Arlette Langman
,
Corinne Lazare
,
Bernard Dubois

Music

Haydn

With

Marlène Jobert
,
Jean Yanne
,
Christine Fabréga
,
Jacques Galland
,
Patricia Pierangeli
,
Maurice Rish

Elsewhere

Pialat’s remarkable second feature is an uncompromising study of the break-up of a relationship, based on his own autobiographical novel. So scathing and unsparing is Pialat’s view of his male protagonist that David Thompson suggested in Sight & Sound that this might be “life re-edited with just the embarrassing and unpleasant bits left in”. Jean Yanne (a Pialat look-alike) was named Best Actor at Cannes in 1972 for his performance as Jean, a selfish and domineering filmmaker still living with his estranged wife, but involved for six years now with Catherine, a younger working-class woman. The disintegration of this long-term affair is charted in a series of potent and perceptive episodes. Painful recriminations alternate with tearful reconciliations and whatever feelings exist between Jean and Catherine are inevitably destroyed.

“This is an important feminist film by a male director… Considering Pialat’s connection to the film, it is a brutally honest self-analysis. Jean Yanne is superb as a loving and destructive man.” — Melissa Biggs, French Films