The Suitor
Le Soupirant
Pierre Etaix
The "suitor" in question is a tall young man, timid and withdrawn, more apt to dream than to live his life and who prefers astronomy to the idea of marriage. His comfortable and conventional bourgeois parents nevertheless manage to convince him of its necessity. He tears himself away from his imaginary universe and begins the search for his soul mate...
With : Pierre Etaix, Karin Vesely, Denise Péronne, Claude Massot
Screenplay : Pierre Etaix, Jean-Claude Carrière
Image : Pierre Levent
Sound : Jean Bertrand
Music : Jean Paillaud
Editing : Pierre Gilette
Decors : Raymond Tournon
Screenplay : Pierre Etaix, Jean-Claude Carrière
Image : Pierre Levent
Sound : Jean Bertrand
Music : Jean Paillaud
Editing : Pierre Gilette
Decors : Raymond Tournon
Production : Paul Claudon
Etaix's first feature-length film is a veritable tale of initiation, and is the result of three years of scriptwriting based on an original idea by Pierre Etaix and Jean-Claude Carrière. "The film gives an overall impression of lightness and grace. The Suitor is a waking dream, the work of a sleepwalker. You wait for it to fall from the wire but it always manages to catch itself. It's an hour and a half of timeless, weightless fantasy, a fragile gift to be watched with care" (P. Sengissen). "In the great tradition of Italian theatre's Pedrolino (Pierrot in French), the melancholy dreamer, The Suitor is not only a sigh of love, but it sighs life like Chateaubriand claimed to have yawned his own" (J.L. Bory). The Suitor won the Louis Delluc prize in 1962.