In comparison to some of his contemporaries, Jacques Becker was a far less prolific director, despite having made just over a dozen films – but each one a cherished part of French film history, a work of immense importance and genre-defining brilliance in the vast majority of cases. Becker is well-regarded amongst those with a knowledge of this era in French filmmaking, but he has consistently been neglected as one of the primary forerunners of many film movements, such as the Nouvelle Vague and Cinema du look, both of which are deeply indebted to the director, both narratively and visually. One of his more fascinating experiments was Antoine and Antoinette, which tells the story of two working-class lovers who find themselves momentarily seeing hope on the horizon after they win the lottery, and they begin to play their future, which they see as being as far from the poverty they have experienced as possible – this is until they run into a few problems that complicate their plans. The film is an absolute delight – the kind of romantic comedy that truly earns its place amongst the canon of great films produced by France during this period (and looking at the kinds of filmmakers working at the time, this is an impressive achievement). Charming and delightful, but not lacking in terms of depth, Antoine and Antoinette is a true gem of a film, a simple but evocative story of two interweaving lives that feels genuinely vibrant and romantic in the ways that not too many entries into this genre can attest.

Antoine and Antoinette is the rare kind of romantic comedy that lives up to both components of that classification – it is absolutely hilarious, and filled to the brim with the kind of genuine passion that we don’t see all that often. Grappling the line between outrageous comedy-of-errors and earnest romantic melodrama, Becker’s work captures a very vivid moment in European history. Produced only a few years after the end of the Second World War, we can feel the spectre of this world-shattering event lingering throughout the film – it is never directly referenced, but we can see it reflected in the ennui of the working class, who are undergoing what appears to be an interminable series of labours simply for their survival. Antoine and Antoinette is a film steeped heavily in the post-war mentality, but it is never weighed down by the burden of its contextual background, since Becker is far too brilliant a filmmaker to resort to overly heavy-handed depictions of social strife, when what he really wanted to do was make a delightful and meaningful comedy that has a strong message inserted between moments of exuberance. Becker, in addition to fellow screenwriters Maurice Griffe and Françoise Giroud, goes in search of humour and romance, proving that they can both be found in the most unexpected places, and can exist with as much vivacity as any other work without needing to disregard humanity. Antoine and Antoinette exists at the intersection between gritty realism and lavish melodrama, and while the visual style certainly lends itself to the former, the story is very much about love in times of struggle, demonstrating the tenacity of the human spirit to pull themselves out of challenging times.

Becker had a knack for telling stories of ordinary folk, and with Antoine and Antoinette, he provides us with a very moving glimpse into the lives of not only the titular characters, but every individual they encounter along their journey. In many ways, this film seems to be propelled less by a particular plot, and more by atmosphere, functioning as something very close to an ethnographic study of Paris and its population at a particular moment in history, which ties into the film’s creation within the postwar period. We are invited into this world, asked to become participants in this charming comedy-of-errors, which feels far more enticing than a more conventional comedy. The film may not be particularly inventive – it has the same approach to its characters as nearly every other similar romantic comedy (and the performances by Roger Pigaut and Claire Mafféi as the two central characters, and Noël Roquevert as the villain of the story, are delightful but expected), so it can’t be considered all that experimental outside of a few interesting attempts to elevate it from both a narrative and production standpoint – Becker’s use of the camera is always so compelling, since it weaves through locations with such fluidity, standing in as the gaze of the audience, who feel like we are witnessing these events first-hand, despite being separated from the film by three-quarters of a century. The brilliance comes in the attention to detail, and the remarkable screenplay, which is filled with such sparkling wit, we often find ourselves overwhelmed by the perpetual delights of a film built on the intention of giving the viewer something memorable to grasp onto, which it succeeded in wholeheartedly.

Antoine and Antoinette feels like an authentic snapshot of Paris at this particular moment in time, which appears to be the primary motivation behind the film. Becker had many gifts, but perhaps most prominent was his ability to truly capture the fabric of the social and cultural milieux in which he was raised, portraying them through a series of stunning, exceptionally well-crafted films that are bursting with life and filled to the brim with a revolutionary spirit that is difficult to ignore. There’s a beauty to the film that is sometimes lost when it seems somewhat manic, which is almost entirely on purpose – how else could the director have reconciled both comedy and romance in a way that seemed both oppositional and symbiotic than through forcing them together in a magnificent collision of unforgettable images, hilarious jokes and memorable pieces of dialogue, all of which is pieced together to form this beautifully complex and often quite peculiar story of love and loss. Few films have been able to capture the various twists and turns that come with a relationship than Antoine and Antoinette, which clearly prides itself on its ability to evoke a particular time and place, which it does with incredible consistency and earnest humour, enough to hold our attention and keep us engaged throughout this delightful journey into postwar Paris.