Claude Sautet's portraits of the French bourgeoisie are sometimes accused of being rather more celebratory than critical of "the good life," but the truth is he's not interested in propagandizing one way or the other. The compassion in his point of view is a measure of his refusal to divorce, or distance, himself from his characters so as to indulge in didactic moralizing. His skills as a straight storyteller are generally overlooked or underrated, because his supremely mellifluous movies proceed at almost exactly the pulse of everyday life (in Mado, he injects some pungent sex and criminal intrigue without noticeably quickening that pulse). One sample of his narrative facility, here, is the conception of the title character (Ottavia Piccolo) which enables him easily to paint a wide stripe across the social spectrum — she's an amoral, free-lance prostitute who, with her young friends and menopausal clientele, makes an ideal bridge between opposite classes and generations. Another sample of his facility is the cloak of mystery he wraps around the ambivalent Charles Denner character — the suspenseful buildup to his first appearance, the Dickens-ian dramatic flair with which he makes his long-anticipated entrance, and the mixture of curiosity, jealousy, snobbery, and urgent need with which he is greeted. (This is to say nothing of Denner's playing of the part, a bravura performance in the midst of a perfectly tuned ensemble.) Sautet's subtle sense of character, his breadth of subject, his anguished social purpose, and his attention to detail mark him as one of the modern cinema's few upholders of old novelistic virtues, and this movie shows him working at the top of his bent. Michel Piccoli, Jacques Dutronc, Romy Schneider. (1976) — Duncan Shepherd
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