Si c’était à refaire (1976)

Si c’était à refaire is a French romantic film drama first released in 1976, directed by Claude Lelouch.  The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Anouk Aimée, Charles Denner, Francis Huster and Colette Baudot.  It has also been released under the title: If I Had to Do It All Over Again.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Aged 35, Catherine Berger leaves prison after having completed a 15 year prison sentence for complicity in the murder of her employer.  She gave birth to a son whilst in custody and, once released from prison,  intends to rebuild her life with him...

This film is a curious mixture of drama and light comedy which resembles Claude Lelouch’s earlier (better known) film, Un homme et une femme, in both structure, content and style.  The photography is distinctively Lelouch, with waltzing camera movements, excessive use of natural light (often to the point of whiting out most of the screen) and an unnatural sound track (with small sounds like a bird song or a tap dripping muffling out what ought to be louder sounds).

All this visual and acoustic gimmickry works very well in the first half of the film when the film’s subject, the unfortunate Catherine, returns to normal life after a long period of incarceration, achieving an almost Bressonesque communion of her inner-self with the her environment.  Unfortunately, the style does not develop at all when things improve for Catherine and Lelouch’s stylistic feats of photographic originality rapidly appear unnecessary and at variance with the direction the film appears to be heading.   The justification for this artistic overload is unveiled at the end of the film, but by that stage you feel that Lelouch has pulled a fast one.

Despite these quibbles, this is an entertaining ninety or so minutes of cinema which offers us one of Catherine Deneuve’s better performances in addition to some truly wacky camera work.  The lively musical score complements the exuberant photography making this a delightfully uplifting film.

© James Travers 2000

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