The American writer Joe arrives in Paris to research and write about Proust. He meets the Polish Karl and they become friends and costumers of brothels and restaurants. When the fifteen year-old Colette arrives in Paris, they both fall in love with her.
Expatriate Henry Miller indulges in a variety of sexual escapades while struggling to establish himself as a serious writer in Paris.
Very nice portrait of the thirties..., 23 April 2002
Author: Oreste (oreste.sl@sympatico.ca) from Montréal, Québec
Different from many other Chabrol movies that follow "Hitchock-like" patterns, _Jours tranquilles à Clichy_ relates the days a young American writer (Henry Miller) spent in the Gay Paris of the early thirties, with his polish-descent friend and their young Colette, a 14 years old-ish girl with whom they both fall in love. The story in itself doesn't send us from a surprising even to another but slowly lifts the curtain over the prostitution, pornography, libertinage and partying that seemed to oppose Paris so much to New York, in the eyes of Miller, searching for a change from the dull like he lead before. The story is a quest for Proust and his lost time, a quest for a new life, for thrills, for truth in forgetting oneself...