Our Story (film)

Our Story
Our Story
	Film poster
	Notre histoire
Directed by	Bertrand Blier
Written by	Bertrand Blier
Produced by	Alain Sarde
Starring	Alain Delon; Nathalie Baye
Cinematography	Jean Penzer
Edited by	Claudine Merlin
Music by	Bohuslav Martinů ; Laurent Rossi
Distributed by	AMLF
Release date	23 May 1984;
Running time	110 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Box office	$6.6 million

Our Story (original title: Notre histoire, also known as Separate Rooms) is a 1984 French absurdist drama film written and directed by Bertrand Blier and starring Alain Delon and Nathalie Baye. Both Delon and Blier won a César in 1985.

Plot

Alone in a first-class compartment of a train from Geneva to Paris, a man is reading a motor magazine and drinking beer. A woman enters, challenges him to make love, and afterwards gets out at the next stop. Following her, he takes her to a hotel for a further bout and afterwards hires a car to drive her to her empty home.

He is Robert Avranches, a well-off garage owner with a wife and two little children, and she is Donatienne Pouget, a 33-year-old divorcee whose two children have been removed because of her lifestyle. When he says he'd like to stay with her, she says she is going dancing and returns late at night with a carload of friends from the night club.

There follows a purgatory for Robert, obsessed with a woman who has slept with all the neighbours and now picks up men on trains for fun. Men try to dissuade him and women try to console him, while all he wants is Donatienne, who eventually avoids his attentions by disappearing. He sets off in search of her but is retrieved by his brother and friends from Paris, who take him back to his home. His wife, delighted to have him back, looks identical to Donatienne.

Cast

Alain Delon as Robert Avranches
Nathalie Baye as Donatienne Pouget / Marie-Thérèse Chatelard / Geneviève Avranches
Michel Galabru as Emile (one of Donatienne's neighbours)
Gérard Darmon as Duval
Geneviève Fontanel as Madeleine, wife of Emile
Jean-Pierre Darroussin as the traveller
Jean-François Stévenin as Chatelard, husband of Marie-Thérèse
Sabine Haudepin as Carmen
Ginette Garcin as the florist
Vincent Lindon as Brechet
Bernard Farcy as Farid
Norbert Letheule as Paraiso
Jean-Louis Foulquier as Bob
Philippe Laudenbach as Sam
Paul Guers as Clark
Notable appearances also include Jean Reno and Jean-Claude Dreyfus