Silken Skin – review

Initially released in 1964, La peau douce (aka Silken Skin ) was Truffaut's fourth feature, the film in which he cast off the showy trappings associated with the first years of the Nouvelle Vague and became a truly mature film-maker. It applies Hitchcock's editing style and attention to significant detail to an exquisite study of the tragic affair between a married literary intellectual (a plausible, sympathetic Jean Desailly) and a beautiful young airline hostess. The lover (Françoise Dorléac, sister of Catherine Deneuve) is a cool blonde, the wife (Nelly Benedetti) a passionate brunette, the perplexed husband unsure of what he wants from love and life. Raoul Coutard's black-and-white images are splendid.