10 April 2012
To describe François Truffaut's self-conscious, self-referential 1973 romantic comedy starring Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Léaud as influential would be an understatement. It's a film about making a film - you can all but join the dots between it and various offerings from Tarantino, Soderbergh, Kiarostami and Charlie Kaufman - and it looks itchily cool in a brand new print.
Several scenes - including one in which a grieving, drunken diva keeps opening a cupboard instead of a door - are gripping. Yet compared with 400 Blows or Jules et Jim, the whole thing feels slight. Day for Night, taken a stage further, could have been the first-ever mockumentary.
Day For Night (La Nuit Americaine)
Cert: 12A
