Strange Bedfellows

Although it is advertised as a film about student unrest in Paris and Prague, A Matter of Days is hardly the thing to see for ideological inspiration. It is a quiet, sentimental little love story that happens to be set against a university background, a sort of La Chinoise for squares. When a French graduate student (Thalie Fruges) goes to bed with her professor boyfriend (Vit Olmer) for the first time, Director Yves Ciampi actually cuts to an exterior long shot of the light being turned out in the garret --a graceful, old-fashioned touch that is fairly typical of the entire film. Activists will be angry that Ciampi is obviously more interested in passion than politics, since he uses last spring's political riots merely as a plot device to separate the lovers.

Sentimentalists will accept Days without question or quibble. Actor Olmer bears an uncanny resemblance to Mike Nichols and performs with bemused authority, but the film really belongs to Thalie Fruges, whose effortless, effervescent sexuality lends Days a small but firm distinction.

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