The Things of life = Les choses de la vie

Pierre (Michel Piccoli) has a collision at a roadside intersection and as he battles for his life on the way to hospital, he reflects back on his life, particularly his relationships with his wife (Lea Massari) and his mistress (Romy Schneider). Sautet is a master of a refined form of bourgeois melodrama in which protagonists are jolted out of security and forced to re-examine the meaning of their lives and the value of marriage, family and love. In many ways, “Les Choses de la Vie”, made in 1969, takes the departures allowed for by the radical events of May 1968 not as a means for subverting aesthetics, but for examining the shifts this caused for middle-class morality and values. Pierre is torn by the duties he feels towards love and his duties as a father and husband to his son and wife. His recollections are all part of attempting to reconcile his conflicting desires with the truth of his own mortality. The film is based on the novel by Paul Guimard and the elegant film score is by Philippe Sarde. In French with English subtitles.