CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS

Francois Truffaut was born in Paris on February 6, 1932. Leaving school at 14, he worked at various jobs until, after starting a film club, he met Andre Bazin, who encouraged him to write film criticism for his “Cahiers Du Cinema.” In 1959 Truffaut directed his first eature “The 400 Blows” and, with other “Cahiers Du Cinema” critics turned filmmakers, launched the French New Wave. CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS is the international prize-winning director's 23rd film. When it opened in Paris it became Truffaut's biggest box-office success to date. A highly entertaining comedy-thriller, the film pays affectionate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock and to the Hollywood “film noir” of the '30s and '40s. Fanny Ardant (1981's “The Woman Next Door”) plays the frequently fired secretary of a Cote d'Azure realtor (Jean-Louis Trintignant of 1970's “The Conformist” and 1969's “My Night at Maud's”). Secretly in love with her bad-tempered boss, Ardant turns sleuth when he is accused of murdering his wife and her lover. He goes into hiding while she, still dressed in a skimpy costume for an amateur play, dashes off to Nice and gets entangled in a complicated set of circumstances including more murders, eccentric characters, vice rings, clumsy cops and shady people involved with the law. Ardant's crowning triumph is finding a solution to the mystery and love at the same time. Nestor Almendros' vivid black-and-white photography provides the perfect atmosphere for this jaunty mix of black humor and suspenseful thrills. Ardant is deliciously spunky and the entire cast seems to be having as much fun as Truffaut at his playful best. “Truffaut's most entertaining and watchable film since 'Day For Night' (1973) . . . a masterly doodle, executed with love, skill and flourish.” -Nick Roddick, Sight and Sound