Pardon Mon Affaire

This Yves Robert's film gave Gene Wilder the idea for a US remake ("The Woman in red"). But the latter doesn't have neither the freshness nor the simplicity of the French version.

As a European, I feel myself better at ease with the Robert's movie because it is nearer to my culture -and the fact that actors and action are set in Paris make easier for me to understand the way characters think...

It's doubtless a French comedy, with a perfect actor for this kind of work -Jean Rochefort, who portrays a typical French "bourgeois", awkward, shy and proud of his social position at the same time. A frustrated male of Latin culture...!

Etienne (Rochefort) falls in love with a sexy woman he meets in his bureau. This woman is then chosen for an advertisement... He will do everything for conquering her, unless telling it his wife. The film is a joke about men erotically fantasies.

The film is witty, charming and well written. Whereas Italian comedies play mostly with satire, strange comical faces and misunderstandings, French comedies are less caricature, they present "clownesques" situations in (appearently) more serious environments. Two excellent comical approaches! They're so different from American comical movies -in American comedies there's more mess, you laugh because situations are so incredible and full of contradictions.

This film is worth to see, Jean Rochefort is funny even if he seems serious. When I saw the Gene Wilder movie I didn't enjoy so much -Wilder is an excellent actor, but his "Woman in red" had something quite artificial.. It was not as spontaneous like the original one. Wilder is better with his extravaganzas, with slapstick elements...