The actor Jean-Pierre Leaud, the child star of Truffaut's breakthrough '400 Blows' and who plays the protagonist Claude in 'Deux Anglaises et le Continent' symbolises the flawed and tender charm at the heart of this 1971 film. Leaud can't act. Nevertheless, by dint of his solemn Gallic charm and beauty, there is something deeply moving about this turn-of-the- century cross-Channel menage-a-trois.

The story is an adaptation of a novel by Truffaut's beloved author Henri Pierre Roche who also wrote the novel which inspired 'Jules et Jim'. 'Deux Anglaises et le Continent' is written in diary form from the points of view of three characters, Anne, Muriel and Claude who make up the narrative's central love triangle. The story is basically one of thwarted love. Both English sisters develop strong feelings for their French 'brother' Claude, which eventually turns into destructive sexual passion. As such, the film is an inversion of 'Jules et Jim', which was a comic celebration of love between two close male friends and one girl. Stories of doomed love appealed to Truffaut.

When it appeared in cinemas, the film was a critical and commercial flop. In '71 society was in the grip of sexual liberation, and here was Truffaut, who had reflected the zeitgeist so perfectly six years earlier with a whimsical celebration of liberated passion in 'Jules et Jim' serving up a period piece more reminiscent of the buttoned-up prudery of a Bronte novel.

There are many things wrong with the film. There is an odd tension between the acceptance of Claude's promiscuity as a French fait accompli on the one hand, and the sisters' chaste Victorian values on the other. The film also contains anachronisms throughout which it's fun to spot, including modern electricity pylons. The first half of the film is set in Wales but you can tell it was filmed in Normandy (Truffaut didn't want to travel to a non-French speaking location.) There are several scenes in English in which the dialogue makes you squirm. And, in my opinion, it was an error of judgement on the film maker's part to record the voice-over narration himself in such a hasty, lacklustre tone.

And yet, and yet... There is something moving and wonderful at the heart of this film because it is naive. When it was made, society had moved on and women were taking the pill and changing history; the last thing it wanted was a pastel mood-piece about two thirty year-old virgins. But there is an innocence at the film's heart which is not sentimental but you could call it very male. On the one side you have Leaud's truly shocking moments of ham acting, stilted dialogue, unbelievable period settings and a generally plodding tone, but in the balance these are outweighed by the beauty of the cinematography, the fine performances from Kika Markham and Stacey Tendeter, the music, and Truffaut's genuine feeling for the intricacies of love in all its colours.

Two English Girls and the Continent belongs to what I privately call "the other Truffaut"; this wouldn't be the place to specify why I consider some of Truffaut's films (The Four Hundred Blows; Stolen Kisses; The Wild Child; Domicile conjugal; The Story of Adele H; The Man Who Loved Women; The Green Room; The Last Metro) as belonging to a pretty distinct class that I have titled: the other Truffaut. Notwithstanding, Truffaut's corpus is remarkable as one of the most astonishingly beautiful works of his century.

Truffaut's cinema is the complement and the result of a very particular and highly differentiated world-view. In a genuine and authentic way, he was aware of his singularity. One of his aims—or rather of his means—of his deliberate means—was to tell dirty things in an ingenuous, naive and gentlemanly way.

Truffaut used stylized narrative forms to explore the substratum of the couple relations. He did this in even a more deliberate way than the movie authors he promoted in the '50s. Yet his approach is not a spoofing one; his exoticism isn't mock—exoticism; it is related to some ancient forms of the French culture, to some meta—realist traditions. To a certain Renoir (the one that didn't pretend to be naturalistic or Zolist, but who crafted exquisite _divertissements). It's not that Truffaut's picturesque is a fake one; it is strictly subordinated.

In Truffaut's case, a quite peculiar world-view got the chance of a full, direct expression. What is this quality of Truffaut?What is the gist of Truffaut's art?Some have expressed it in indirect or inappropriate or even hostile way;they felt that particular quality; yet their perception is clumsily or inimically expressed—so with Antonioni, who disliked Truffaut's softness and tenderness and feminineness ,if one might say so.Mrs. Deneuve, who was Truffaut's mistress (they had no children together),spoke about Truffaut's feminine side or perception. I do not think this is properly expressed.

What needs to be indicated is his delicacy, subtlety, freshness, fineness, gentleness, mildness, and his frank tactfulness.

His subtle, smooth irony, his civilized ,polished and indiscreet humor, his highly humane quality in exposing and defining in artistic terms the secret substratum of the human relations, of the desire and of the loneliness and alienation—with a sense of the piquant.

As in J&J, whose declared complement it is, this approach helps, enables Truffaut to narrate with due smoothness and finesse a disturbing and twisted story. The same shamelessness, the same suavity.

Truffaut has a very cute topic for his movie:--the feminine masturbation (and a dose of lesbianism),at the little girls (needless to say that such things are still strictly taboo for most of the mainstream cinema …);--then the _defloration.

As some other Truffaut films, TEG … contains some piquant nudity and sexuality.

A word about the beauty of Truffaut's actors:--a beauty that is generally mild and unobtrusive and discreet—yet very physical and subtly sensual and bodily (Jean-Pierre Léaud,Kika Markham,Stacey Tendeter,Marie Mansart).

One more thing to be spoken of:this one is a period movie—and consequently there is a fair amount of a certain _colorist instinct, joy and gusto—that I will leave the pleasure to my fair reader to discover for him/herself. Truffaut flirted here somehow with a certain trend of aestheticism and stylization that are customary in the period films. (One can perceive the trepidation of the _erotography of the epoch—the interest for this kind of literary production.) On the other hand, Truffaut's huge interest in making such period films is the pendant and the complement of his studious love for a certain class of literature. Truffaut was, one knows it, such a good reader …. (On the other hand,when he adapted a book, that book was never a mere pretext; on the contrary—it was the hallmark. Truffaut adapted only things that he respected. One sees that is not true about, say, Welles or Hitchcock—who go beyond the literary pretext; Truffaut reveres the book, he deepens it, he remains true to it.)

The beauty of the main actors; the finesse; the writer loved by Truffaut; the twisted content; the indiscreet topic of masturbation and bodily life; the hidden substratum; the tactfulness—I hope my fair readers will give this very fine movie the esteem it deserves. Truffaut's stylizations are strictly functional; they are never vain, useless decorations; they wholly belong to the style and are directed towards the movie's meaning and are fully adequate.

Truffaut is as true, as authentic as he is smooth and elegant. Through the stylistics of the social life, he reached the stylistics of the inner life.

I would include Two English Girls and the Continent in a list of Truffaut's best ten—or maybe even five!—movies—with Jules et Jim (1962),The Soft Skin, Mississippi Mermaid, Vivement Dimanche! (1983) ….

Growing up, I eagerly saw each new Truffaut film when it opened in the United States. This one had the biggest impact on me of all.

It's interesting seeing the dichotomy in the reviews here: about half call the film melodramatic, pointless, and dull. The other half find it beautiful, touching, even a masterpiece.

The flaws are easy to pick out. Leaud is awfully low-key to the point of blandness, and the (thankfully) few English language scenes clearly suffer from Truffaut's unfamiliarity with the language -- he failed to catch some really bad English line readings.

But the narration totally works for me, giving the film the "tempus fugit" feel of a great nineteenth century novel. The purposefully rushed, monotone narration keeps the story from becoming overly sentimental. The voice-over sounds like the cold wind of Fate, sweeping the characters through the years from naive youth to the disillusionment of early middle age.

I think one's response to the film has a lot to do with one's own nature: if you have loved passionately and experienced serious heartbreak, you may really GET this movie. If you're a cynical hipster who is simply embarrassed by passion, romantic love, and strong emotions, it's not for you. This is a highly emotional film for highly emotional viewers.

Muriel's letter scene will divide these two groups of viewers. Some posters here call it laughable and ridiculous, perhaps because they're sexually immature or repressed, so the topic of masturbation automatically gives them the giggles. To me, this scene is heartbreaking, when you realize this poor young woman's guilt over masturbating has warped her life and spoiled her chances for happiness. It shows how a small misunderstanding or character flaw can lead to loneliness or lifelong unhappiness.

This film affects me more strongly than the more famous and acclaimed JULES ET JIM, where the characters' actions strike me as more peculiar and clinical than moving. But that's just me.

Few films give such a strong sense of time passing as this one, and life running through the hourglass as we poor human beings bumble, blunder, and suffer as we search for love.

The final scene of an aging Leaud walking through a changed Paris he hardly recognizes as the city of his youth is unforgettable, justifying the movie's length. With a shorter running time, the film could never give you such a sense of time passing, characters growing, changing, and missing chances for happiness.

For those who respond to it, this is one of the most beautiful, affecting films of the 1970s.