Rating: 
Summary: La Belle de Soir
Review: If on one hand, "La Sirène du Mississipi" is not Truffaut's best, on the other, it is much better than many films we see nowadays -- say, the quasi-remake of this, called "Original Sin", starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. Both films are based on Willian Irish's --or, if you will, Cornell Woolrich's -- "Waltz into Darkness". But the similarities end here. While Truffaut is an exercise of style and good taste, the other, directed by Michael Cristofer, is so meaningless that is almost vulgar. The plot is very simple, but at the same time catching. A man from Reunion Island orders a mail bride. When he meets her, she turns up to be more beautiful and dangerous than described in the letters and shown in the photos. He imedeately falls for her, and apparently so does she. We, and so does he, learn that she is not really what she meant to be. The film has some fine and exciting twists that keep you wondering what would come next. Catherine Deneuve plays the femme fatale. She comes fresh from Buñuel's "La Belle du Jour", where she has already exercised and improved her glacial blonde side. Here, she goes a bit further, including a bit more of dissimulantion. Not only is she beautiful, but also, very effective as the woman who can dissimulate love. Jean Paul Belmondo plays a very different character from those he had been cast for. He is a bit silly and weak. So the whole relationship is dominated by her, once she is very strong and persuasive. One clear example of this is when they are buying a car. He is sure he wants the silver one, that would be more discreet, but she wants the red one... guess which one they buy! So, don't be fooled, this is a Catherine Deneuve's show. She is dazzingly in her Yves Saint-Laurent. She dominates the frames in every scene she is in! And even some she is out. Another thing, many people may not understand the difference between "tu" and "vous" in this film. It is not a mistake! The writer meant to show different periods in their relationship. When they are close --things are fine-- they use 'tu', but sometimes they use 'vous', particulary, after spending a time apart-- this means how distant from each other --as a strange -- they became. Truffaut's work is as always very effective and very creative. In the very beginning he does an homage to Jean Renoir, using some footage of his "La Marseillase" introducing Reunion Island. Although this film is meant to be a thriller, in the end, it is much more a love story. A tragic love story of a love that probably shouldn't have happened. We also have to notice how hidden and subtle the sexuality is, in this movie -- as in most of Truffaut's woks. Some of his films may be virtually sexless, but if you watch it very close, you will see sparkles of love everywhere. As a devoted fan of François Truffaut, every film he made, interests me. This "Mississipi Mermaid" makes no exeception. It is intriguing, interesting and disturbing. "Love hurts?", somebody asks in the film. "Yes, it does, when I look at you, you are so beautiful that hurts me. [...] it is a joy and a suffering". As most of his movies: they are a joy, but they also hurt us, once they show how human nature and love can be.
Rating:
Summary: Two Of the Sexiest People To Ever Grace the Planet
Review: It is hard for me to imagine a more gorgeous couple than Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo. He was also the lead in the marvelously sexy "Breathless." The strange thing is that two people so physically right for one another should have so much trouble staying together! Deneuve kills Belmondo's mail-order bride so she can take her place and marry him for his fortune. Belmondo's character is almost too naive but he is in love so we'll stretch a bit. When this femme fatale takes off with his money, he pursues and finds her. There is one setup after another with the two of them and they are forever doomed to come together, come apart. This was Francois Truffaut's movie and I never met a movie of his I couldn't like. This one is no exception. Even though it is not his very best at the very peak of his powers, it is certainly very good and a good evening's entertainment for you.
Rating: 
Summary: A ROMANTIC LOST IN THE XXth CENTURY
Review: MISSISSIPPI MERMAID could be considered as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. True if one appreciates the musical score of the movie very Bernard Herrmann-like or discreet little touches reminding of the english master touch. But that's all because there is any suspense in Truffaut's MISSISSIPPI MERMAID. As in THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, Truffaut kills carefully any tension that could arise in the viewer's mind. Jean-Paul Belmondo is another variation of Antoine Doinel, the well-known Truffaut double, he is a romantic hero, speaks like a romantic hero and finally acts like a romantic hero of the french XXth century literature. On the contrary, Catherine Deneuve is the impersonation of a 1968 young woman - at least, in Truffaut's mind - egotistical, money hungry and materialistic. Their encounter cannot but produce a hiatus. Hence, the strange mood of the movie and the curious reactions of the characters almost unbelievable for the XXth century rational Truffaut fan. So if you don't know the movies of François Truffaut, begin your discovery with THE 400 BLOWS or THE SOFT SKIN and leave this movie for later, for the moment you will be ready to accept this peculiar love story. Just a trailer as bonus features if one excepts the various subtitles with this MGM DVD. Images and sound no more than average. A DVD zone make your choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Truffaut's best Hitchcock film
Review: People who put a Lonely Heart's ad in the newspaper are often idealists: they try to put into a few words everything they are and expect. The exchange of letters is full of hope. Louis Mahe (Jean Paul Belmondo) is so affected by Julie Roussell's letters that he proposes to her. But not the expected pretty brunette come from board of the "Mississippi" but - Catherine Deneuve. And we know from the start that she is a marriage imposter and that a crime has taken place. She shows no interest in "Julie's" wardrobe (she does not even get her trunk open) and neglects her canary until it dies. But the most basic tricks of seduction (an open zipper) are sufficient to transform Louis into a pliable little dog. First: a joint bank account. And then, when Julie's sister draws attention to herself - the flight. With 27,850 millions of Louis' 28 million francs - she would have needed his signature for the entire sum. Louis and Julie's sister engage a private detective (Michel Bouquet). Louis contrives to trace Marion (Deneuve's real name) in Antibes where she works as taxi-girl - her gangster-lover left her penniless, or rather centimeless. But Louis finds himself unable to kill her. She tells her story: Orphan. Precocious. Lesbian experiences. Many sugardaddies. Jail. And soon she leads him by the nose again. The detective turns out as sly as a fox and tenacious asa bloodhound. Louis and Marion bury his body in the cellar. Thy flee to Paris, where Louis discovers that Julie has a costly taste. She worships money like a deity. He sells his firm at a fraction of its value, but when the corpse of the detective is discovered ( a flood) they have to flee again - this time without the money. Life in a mountain lodge, together with a whining loser - Marion could think of a more cheerful life without this appendage... A high point in the careers of everybody involved. Belmondo's self-deceit makes him nearly endearing. Deneuve looks beautiful in her wardrobe by Yves St. Laurent. Her performance is delightful. At first she fakes the fragile wifey - too timid to ask her husband for money, that's why the joint bank account is needed - but after she is exposed she sounds like Katharine Hepburn in the jail scene of BRINGING UP BABY. Truffaut directs with self-evident aplomb. The sixties were the only decade when european films were head and shoulders above american productions. After this film Truffaut was able to look his idol Alfred Hitchcock full in the face.
Rating: 
Summary: DVD-production disaster
Review: The story is entertaining enough, but there is not much joy from viewing this DVD. The problem is that the folks producing it apparently were trying to win the contest for the DVD having the world's squattest image. It is EXTREMELY letterboxed WITHIN a 16:9 widescreen format. Even your zoom function won't help you, because the producers moved the subtitles into the black-bar region (and the subtitles are about 2/3 the height of the image itself. The movie becomes simply uninvolving when you see low-resolution images on a thin ribbon across the screen.
Rating:
Summary: Meeting Miss "Right"
Review: This film involves the story of a man seeking his "perfect mate" by means of an ad she has placed in a newspaper. He lives on a lonely island in the Indian Ocean (Reunion, once a French colony) and the woman, played by Catherine Deneuve, is from Paris, supposedly. At first the two exchange a series of letters, so as to "get to know one another," and eventually the woman agrees to travel to Reunion to meet the man. He happens to be a wealthy tobacco farmer, and the owner of a cigarette factory, which makes him moderately wealthy. Upon meeting each other in person they appear somewhat uncomfortable with the circumstances, as if niether quite expected what they find. The woman seems to remember little from her correspondance. When sharing his experiences with business partners the man gets less-than-lukewarm responses from his close associates. Despite these peculiar circumstances and an absolute abscence of anything near intimacy the plans for a wedding go forward. Shortly afterward the woman's behavior becomes gradually more bizarre, until finally she disappears altogether, having taken the man's fortune with her. The man's pusuit for this woman, now his wife, follows. We learn he is pursuing more than just a thief; he pursues her as love-object as well, ending up in shady dance halls along the French Riviera, where she is working. Eventually the truth bocomes known, a kind of love between the two develops, and Catherine Deneuve's character as a victim just as much as a victimizer becomes known. All in all I do not think it is one of her best performances. Where the film succeeds at all is in it's underlying message for persons seeking fulfilling relationships by means of classified "personals." In this respect I think Truffaut was ahead of his time.
Rating:
Summary: Some Mermaids are Poisonous
Review: This is another Belmondo adventure with our hero having to first wake up and then catch up with a beautiful adventureness, in this case a young Catherine DeNeuve. Fans will recognize the house in the snow suspiciously similar to the house in Shoot the Piano Player.
Rating:
Summary: A hot and cold love story in exotic locations.
Review: Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid is an adaptation of a short story written by pulp novelist Cornell Woolrich. It's a tale love and hate, volcanic passion and icy contempt. Belmondo is a Madagacan tobacco plantation owner whose mail-order bride is the luxuriously beautiful Catherine Deneuve. She turns out to be tmptress and a demon. She can't decide whether she has been enslaved or enchanted by Belmondo. At first it seems that she is content on the plantation, but one day, Belmondo wakes to find her gone. The remainder of the film is his mad sojourn across the world to find her again. Every time he does, she passionately returns to his embrace, only to slip away again. Truffaut's film follows the conventions of the romans courtois, medieval tales of romantic love. There are rules to this love - the couple can never be permanently together, and if they are, the happiness cannot last. They are bound to love each other only in separation. If you like the romantic elements of Sophie's Choice or are interested in femmes fatales, you'll like Mississippi Mermaid.
Rating:
Summary: Misfit
Review: Unlike some other reviewers I read here, I have never met a Truffaut movie I've cared for. I 've tried: I mean, the guy is SOoooo famous. But Mississipi Mermaid epitomizes the disappointment I 've had with every Truffaut movie: odd casting, bad dialogue (I mean: the switches in French from Vous to Tu between wife/husband in 1969 are just plain grotesque!), hideous soundtrack overblown and overwhelming, incoherent story development...and add to that here a detestable DVD transfer with squiggles and blurs. Whooof! What a mess! But thank god for Belmondo and Deneuve, at least....
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