Les Deux Anglaises et Le Continent

Les Deux Anglaises et Le Continent(Two English Girls) (1971, François Truffaut)

One of Truffaut's aims in Two English Girls is to underline the differences between English and French cultures in terms of dealing with romantic and sexual subject matters. The tone and the narrative strategy of the film shift when the characters move from British land to French soil and vice versa. The sexual repression scenes and the sexual liberation ones balance each other. Muriel’s' character (Stacey Tendeter) reveals a certain capacity for traditionalism and morality while Ann's character is more adventurous and a risk-taker. Ann may be less innocent but more sage. Muriel's destiny is to suffer. She is the victim of the social tradition that hovers over her romantic and sexual desires. Her loss of virginity at the end of the film is poignant, frightening, and violent. If the frame of reference for Muriel's love is 19th-century romanticism, Ann's love represents a modern 20th-century passion for liberation and freedom. The possibilities for the romantic encounters in the love triangle have prompted Truffaut to consider his love affairs with Catherine Deneuve & Françoise Dorléac as the self-reflexive source for the narrative. Review By Morad Sadeghi