I gotta hunch: Andrzej Żuławski got baked outta his mind one night, threw in this deluded puppy, fell gonzo in love with Isabelle Adjani's unhinged performance, and while taking another rip thought to himself: "This young lass will play Satan in my next film." To borrow Breaking Bad language, Truffaut goes "half measure," Żuławski six years later goes "full measure." Which is to say Truffaut only fractionally uses Adjani's brand of feminine destruction, while really paving the way for Żuławski to completely liquefy her energy into demonic soup.
 
The power of this film rests completely on the shoulders of Adjani. The setting would be nothing without her beauty and physicality, which she uses to obsess, possess and ultimately destroy the men in her life. Her eyes reveal the depths of her talent, shifting from melancholy to crazy to cold fire, all in a moment. She's like Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Huppert. She destroys others but also destroys herself through drama and dreams, embodying the kind of passion, heat and ferocity that best marks a woman scorned by trifling men. She plays mental illness so exquisitely, always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but her performance conveys humanity at every move, every glance, even while being selfishly relatable. 

Truffaut is fascinated with the tormented, outcast woman. JULES AND JIM (1962), THE BRIDE WHO WORE BLACK (1968), MISSISSIPPI MERMAID (1969) and TWO ENGLISH GIRLS (1971) all explore damaged young women on the brink of doomed love affairs. Their sexuality always seems to breathe dragon fire over shady, unsuspecting men who need reform. THE STORY OF ADELE H. (1975) is one of the stronger iterations of the theme, as it always retains our sympathy for Adele, broken and bruised, wandering the streets deteriorated by her passion. It'll be a quixotic, borderline revenge fantasy for those who won't take no for an answer.

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