We Won't Grow Old Together

Jean is a married filmmaker who has been with Catherine for six years. The relationship is over and both know it. The film watches him leave her again and again and come back every time. The scenes resemble each other because what happens is the same: the same fight, the same apology, the same drive. The subject is not separation but the inability to separate. Jean says each time that it is the last and believes it; the real pain is that at some point Catherine actually goes, and then he can do nothing. The form is Pialat's method: scenes start in the middle, transitions go unexplained, the cuts are hard. The camera is in the car, in hotel rooms and by the sea, and nothing is composed anywhere. The source is Pialat's own novel, written out of his own relationship, which he never hid. Jean Yanne won best actor at the Cannes film festival in 1972 for the role. The tension between Yanne and Pialat during the shoot was much discussed afterwards, and part of the film's unease has been attributed to it. Marlène Jobert plays Catherine. Who it is for: viewers who like French realism and narratives built on repetition. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a hero to sympathise with; Jean is cruel throughout and the film never defends him.