Édouard et Caroline

In an unfashionable Paris apartment, a pianist and his wife quarrel over a missing waistcoat and a shortened evening dress as they prepare for an upcoming recital in Becker’s delightfully airy, Lubitsch-like portrait of love and life in a slowly modernizing urban France. “Much ado about very little” is how the 1952 New York Times review summed up this minor masterpiece, yet it’s that ephemeral quality of observation over plot, and feeling over form, that makes Édouard et Caroline so timeless now. Praised by Cahiers critics like Godard and Truffaut, the film points the way towards their future city-snapshots of love and desire.