It would be possible to approach L'Histoire d'Adèle H. as a continuation of its auteur's concerns: the obsessions and limitations of romantic love; the search for identity; the attempt to transform life into art; or perhaps it should be seen as a rather somber Day for Night, playing against artistic conventions and deliberately confusing the illusion and reality of film. What I would like to suggest here is that Adèle Hugo's life is to be seen as epitomizing aspects of women's situation in general; that Truffaut is critically examining the destructive effect of the dominating images and personae of her period on a woman….

If the film remains to an extent within the romantic conventions it is questioning, it is because they are being questioned, not dismissed, and thus their power as well as their inadequacy has to be recognized. The color, for example, is...