the director love the actress and it show . the actress inhabit the character and whom we love at first sight and sound . the character love her jealous unprepossessing husband and he love her . his childhood friend secretly love his wife and the fact that his friend be a beautiful woman make the love tragic and ironic . his wife be jealous of his childhood friend and think her attention be out of secret love for her husband . then there be a murder and the investigating police lieutenant and who love only his bi racial son and and resents be take from his company by the above character and who have have some unpleasant contact with the decease and be all lie to one degree or another and unravel the mystery with some of the most precise and authentic procedural detail ever capture on film . and then there be the atmospherics of a post war paris and where coal be in short supply and music be fill with erotic longing and wistful memory and and innocence have long ago be wash away by the rain . all of this in a milieu of magician whose trick do not always work and dog who walk on their hind foot and express music criticism and hungry news reporter and exhausted cop . and then there be many of the fine actor of their generation who have be through some very bad year direct by and to come full circle and a man who be in love with his lead actress and who and with full justification and be a respected friend of picasso . i have see this film often and i love all of them and it .