Two English Girls

‘Two English Girl’ does not belong to the list of Truffaut’s best, but I found it very engaging and pithy. The age old love triangle, involving two sisters and a young Frenchman (with an artistic bent of mind and a capricious but sensitive nature) comprise the spine of the plot. Nothing great, nothing extraordinary. But outstanding cinematic treatments have lifted it several cuts above the mediocrety. The idyllic English countryside (the period is early twentieth century) provided the exact backdrop for a young English girl (Muriel) and a visiting French boy (Claude) to fall in love with each other, with Muriel’s sister Ann playing kind of the role of a catalyst. Here Truffaut used the contrast of open and fresh countryside outdoor and the cramped indoor shots to unravel the confusion and conflicts of young hearts, spanning between uncertainty and despair to free spirit and high hopes. The indoor scenes, especially the nighttime scenes need special mention: narrow camera angles, mid range shots with minimum frame space, dark backgrounds (navy blue wall paper, very dark shaded wooden furniture and doors) and blue domed lamp shades set a claustrophobic mood, complimented by repeated bleating of fog horns in the back ground (a coastal village). The plot is complex, with architectural similarities with plots by Jane Austen (this movie was based on a novel by Henri Pierre Roche), and the promiscuity of Claude and Ann led the events even to a more complicated direction. But the cinematic narrative and poetically crisp editing make the storyline redundant, and the audience is hypnotized by Truffaut’s magical touches, unraveling the dichotomy and sensitivities of the characters, highlighting the nuances of situations, and dramatizing the turns of the events through sheer visual and aural richness of cinematography, acting and shot compositions. He used many sculptures as props in the set layouts (Ann was a budding sculptor), offering new angles of interpretation of the scenes. That is cinematic language- the visuals transcending the plot in a subtle but all encompassing fashion to a different height of expression. I found one scene especially remarkable. Near the end of the movie, Claude met Muriel at the dock of Calles. When they faced each other in front of an anchored ship, the play of light reflected on the swirling sea water on the black stern of the ship in background is mesmerizing, one of the best shot compositions I have ever come across. Perhaps, Truffaut made some better films, but I shall remember this one for those visuals.