The beginning of the film is most confusing, there are a ton of characters and we never really get a proper introduction to them. Barbara just disappears halfway through. I would've liked to see more of her. I know that nouvelle vague is far from a homogeneous movement, but still, this one stands out a lot and to me looks a lot like what Truffaut used to call "cinéma de papa"
It is a film for Jean Claude Brialy , Dawn Addams and Marie Jose Nat , not for the Flaubert novel as source. Alexandre Astruc ditches his former "camera pen " style which spawned memorable efforts such as D'Aurevilly's "Le Rideau Cramoisi" and Maupassant's "Une Vie" . "Education Sentimentale" finds the director succumbing to the Nouvelle Vague vices: hollow characters, loose screenplay ,"deep" "serious" "meaningful " conversations,self-centered persons who do not even realize there is a world outside. Stupidly adapted from Gustave Flaubert , Astruc made the same mistake as Vadim filming "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" :transposing a work from another century to his era . In the sixties , a story which was absorbing one hundred years before may become banal ,as common as any (platonic or not) adulterous relations . Ill acted by Brialy, Auclair and Nat, but, it's boooooooring. I have read the Flaubert book. It is a masterpiece. But of course Astruc was a supporter of the autheurism concept thing. Anyway, I was hardly surprised to see how banal and boring this ambition was. There is of course a general distrust towards the bourgeoisie to be seen here , but no potential edge. Actually the whole film is anodine. We have the undecided woman that needs to be saved from her oppressive life and husband, we have the clingy and needy model who needs anyone who treat her mildly seriously, we have the good young, sensitive man that is dying to do it for her. Come on...
