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The Hairdresser’s Husband (French: Le Mari de la coiffeuse), a 1990 French comedy-drama film written by Patrice Leconte and Claude Klotz, and directed by Leconte. Jean Rochefort stars as the title character. Anna Galiena co-stars. The film received the Prix Louis Delluc. In 1991 it was nominated for “Best Foreign-Language Film“ in the British Academy Film Awards. The film begins with a flashback from the titular character, Antoine. We are introduced to his fixation with female hairdressers which began at a young age. The film uses flashbacks throughout and there are frequent parallels drawn with the past. Though Antoine tells Mathilde that ’the past is dead’, his life is evidence that on some level the past repeats itself. As a young boy he fantasised about a hairdresser who died by suicide and as a man in his 50s he begins an affair with a hairdresser which ends after ten years in her suicide. However, there are differences: Mathilde dies by suicide because she is so happy she is afraid of the happiness she has found with Antoine ending. We are unsure what Antoine has done with his life; we know, however, that he has fulfilled his childhood ambition: to marry a hairdresser. The reality proves to be every bit as wonderful as the fantasy and the two enjoy an enigmatic, enclosed and enchanting relationship. The final sequence shows Antoine, in the salon, dancing to Eastern music just as he has done throughout his life. His last line is the enigmatic comment that the hairdresser will return.
