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Bed and Board (film)

Bed and Board (French: Domicile conjugal) is a 1970 French comedy-drama film directed by François Truffaut, and starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade. It is the fourth in Truffaut's series of five films about Antoine Doinel, and directly follows Stolen Kisses, depicting the married life of Antoine (Léaud) and Christine (Jade). Love on the Run finished the story in 1979.

Plot

Antoine and Christine have gotten married and are living in a pleasant apartment that her parents have found for them. In it, she gives violin lessons, while he works in the courtyard dyeing carnations for flower shops. When his experiments with colouring agents go horribly wrong, he has to find other work. He learns that an American company is hiring and, despite speaking very little English, Antoine applies for the job. His opponent is a much more qualified candidate with a letter of recommendation that proves it. However, the company's owner ends up believing the letter refers to Antoine, and hires him. The secretary tries to fix this mistake but is ignored.

Antoine's new job is to demonstrate model boats to potential customers in a mock-up harbour. Christine has a baby boy, which she calls Ghislain but Antoine registers as Alphonse, preferring that name. Despite initially hating that name (believing it sounds too "provincial") and swearing to change it back, Christine eventually ends up calling the baby Alphonse.

At work, Antoine meets a Japanese woman named Kyoko and is smitten with her. One day, she sees her playing alone with the boats and accidentally dropping her bracelet in the supposedly fragile mock-up harbour. Fearing repercussions and unable to save the bracelet, she mentions nothing of the incident to anyone and leaves. Antoine later recovers the bracelet and goes to her apartment. Kyoko is moved by this gesture, and the two start having an affair. Not knowing he is married, she falls madly in love with Antoine and sends him a bouquet of flowers with love notes hidden in their petals. Antoine tries to get rid of the flowers, but they get eventually found by Christine. He passes them off as a gift to Christine, who gladly puts them in a vase. However, she finds out about the affair when the flowers bloom and Kyoko's notes fall off the petals.

Antoine is banished from the bedroom by a furious Christine and eventually moves out to a hotel, while his wife makes a life for herself and the baby. However, Antoine keeps communicating with Christine, who is still worried about his well-being. Antoine starts to fall out of love with Kyoko, who does not seem to notice how miserable he feels. Unable to be with Christine either, Antoine decides to have sex with a prostitute. After this, he sees Christine's dad in the brothel. The latter remains unashamed, seeing this as a normal part of a married man's life. Kyoko eventually leaves Antoine, seeing that she cannot maintain his attention anymore.

One year later, Antoine and Christine are back together, raising Alphonse in their apartment. Their neighbors, an older married couple, think that Antoine and Christine are now finally, truly in love with each other.