The clip from director Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman that opens his La Bonne Année (Happy New Year) lasts long enough to remind viewers of the visual gimcrackery that contributed to the former’s success. The film is being screened for a captive audience: a group of convicts, among whom is Simon (Lino Ventura), a jewel thief about to be granted what appears to be a New Year’s parole for good behavior. In flashback (and color!), we see the caper that earned him his six-year stretch and the reason behind the amnesty: the cops want to find out where he and his partner stashed the stolen gems. Françoise Fabian is the woman in the picture, an antiques dealer surrounded by intellectuals who’s capable of making room in her heart for an unpolished gem. A study in craggy repose, Simon’s approach to both crime and romance — psychology is screwing someone before they screw you, a woman is a man who cries more, etc. — is the epitome of reductionism. Before product placement became the rage, elite French jewelry company Van Cleef & Arpels purchased enough on-screen advertisements to help bankroll the production. Nothing new, but Lelouch does a commendable job of rearranging the familiar. (1973) — Scott Marks