The Soft Skin 4K 1964 Ultra HD 2160p

Storyline
While on the way to Lisbon to give a lecture on French author Honoré de Balzac, Pierre Lachenay, a married father of one and renowned Parisian academic, locks eyes with Nicole, a statuesque Panair do Brasil flight attendant. As a result, entranced by the lovely lady and emboldened by furtive glances in the elevator, the sought-after intellectual asks Nicole out. After all, it is impossible to ignore the chemistry between them. But in the absence of guarantees, professional commitments and unavoidable domestic routines can only mean one thing: stealing time for adultery can be nerve-racking for everyone involved. Pierre, however, is confident he can make it work. And after 15 years of marriage, the grizzled literary expert wants out. But Pierre flirts with disaster.

User Review
The picture can be dubbed as a dance on the bones of an aging lover, but it will turn out to be only a half-truth. Being an intelligent man and experienced enough cinematographer, François Truffaut realized that many people will see in his movie only adultery without additional meanings and allegories, and still took a risk. The flabby figure of the new Casanova, infatuated with a pretty stewardess, confirmed the sarcastic statement about the promiscuity of morals. Justify the literary Pierre, burdened with a high position, solid wealth, a charming wife and a lovely daughter, in fact, there is nothing. He is the perfect target for spits, arrows, stones, criticism and the rest of the list. Truffaut and himself did not deny himself the pleasure of often emphasize the cowardice and worthlessness of a married gentleman who seduced a simple Nicole. However, fearing exposure of the look speaks of more than the proverbial demon in the rib.

Characteristic of the scene that began the novel. The stewardess has only changed her shoes behind the curtain of the office, and the status gentleman resembles a spreading margarine. In his long-established, hour-by-hour life (which, however, does not prevent regular late arrivals), displays of humanity have become rare. As was the excitingly meek disposition of the girl who turned out to be available. The world did not turn over in Pierre's head, but began to crack perceptibly on many pillars. The timidity of the beau is ironically emphasized by the chastity of the relationship. The lights in the bedroom are thoughtfully dimmed, and Nicole's voice sounds angelic chiming. The casual affair at first looks like a bar whim or an age-related necessity, but it never had a chance to grow into something more. The easiest way to write off the futility of the novel on the dissimilarity in years or the complexity of the impending divorce. Except Truffaut filmed not treason, and sent under the airplane landing gear mores of the French bourgeoisie, on the turn turned out to be gutless officials, for whom the position in society is more important than the feelings of unhappy women.

The boundary between tabloid passions and serious drama is Pierre's sad rejoinder: “Paris is now ugly for us. Everything is so, with the only difference that it is fairer for one Nicole. “The Soft Skin” is about her and about Françoise Dorléac herself. And what other skin languishes beneath the nylon of stockings, waiting for the touch of lips white with romantic shock? And even if the mistress is so exhausted from a disappointing evening that she can't open her eyes on the bed, her body will say it all. Aristocratic divorcee with the manners of an obedient girl willingly changes her jeans to a skirt, if it will be more pleasant to her companion, she is incredibly light and pure among the environment mired in hypocrisy. In fact, the girl's profession speaks of Truffaut's desire to keep the hidden creature somewhere in the clouds - away from the unrighteous earth. A grain of dramatic reserves Dorleac, which Roman Polanski will extract two years later, was enough to recognize the insolubility of the contradictions between the recklessness of feelings and the ruthlessness of life. A set of symbolic white cups and a black coffee pot completes the desire to go against archaic customs, but in that France, squeamishly wrinkled by the movie-call, it was doomed to rejection.

A sad confirmation of the movie's contagious unhappiness begs to differ. “The Soft Skin” was not embraced by audiences, Truffaut felt in Fellini's skin after the premiere of ‘Dolce Vita,’ and the lead actors suffered a huge shock. The beautiful title of a shallow picture in which emotions change each other with kaleidoscopic speed, not once came to mind the public in 67, when a terrible accident cut short the life of Françoise Dorleac. She could become no less a symbol of the Fifth Republic than her sister Catherine Deneuve, because the talent possessed exceptional, but was at the mercy of tragic accident and fire. It is fair to say, the actress was born in the wrong time, just as the party Nicole was unclaimed in the vile bourgeois play. Naturally, flawless were neither the actress nor her heroine, but the main transgression of both was quite natural desire to live. And not just to exist, longingly counting the missed opportunities, and be happy under the unkind sky.

What did the stewardess find in the mumbling voluptuary other than his position? And what brought Dorleac to the set of an obviously immoral movie? The answer is simple: naive faith in the favor of her star, no matter how misplaced pathetic this passage may be. Two women - real and imaginary - stepped into the void, where there was no light, and the only light flickered inside a heart that did not know true love. Their tenderness, as it is now finally clear, was above this world, but there is no doubt: neither fanatical professional Françoise, nor naive idealist Nicole still would not give up, as Truffaut did not. The best days of fame awaited him ahead, and “The Soft Skin” - a movie about unfulfilled female happiness in ugly Paris, and not about some bastard, capable of only telling hours about Balzac. The grain is not in the words, but in the deeds, which may remain misunderstood and unappreciated, but do not become less courageous and important. And this, of course, is even too good for a movie about adultery and the gravity of its consequences.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (85.9 Mb/s)
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1

Info Audio

#French: FLAC 1.0
#French: FLAC 2.0 (Commentary with screenwriter Jean-Louis Richard and Truffaut scholar Serge Toubiana)

Info Subtitles

English, French SDH, Dutch, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish.