Director: Alain Corneau
Year: 1976
Country: France
Rating: 7.0
This is an intriguing suspenseful crime film
from French director Alain Corneau. This was Corneau's second film and he
was to focus on this genre till later in his career when he had his biggest
success with a biographical drama. I am not sure whether to call this a cop
and cop film or a cat and cat game. It swerves all over the place, in an
orderly French way initially before going crazily off the tracks in a way
one might expect an American film to do. Corneau plays against our expectations
right from the opening scene and continues through the film. One being that
the murderer is perhaps the most sympathetic character. It stars two of France's
greatest actors; Yves Montand and Simone Signoret who were married to each
other in real life but not in the film.
The crime and drama is built on a few big
coincidences that may seem highly unlikely but that you simply have to accept
or the film quickly falls on its face. In that opening scene uneasy music
is on the soundtrack and a man whose face is unseen is in his workroom making
bullets for his collection of guns; the 357 Magnum being his weapon of choice.
Dressed in all black, he turns off the radio and you realize the uneasy soundtrack
was a fake - and then when you think this man is a likely criminal going
off to kill, the camera moves up and it is Montand. Ah. Not a criminal, but
Ferrot, the head of the police investigation squad in the town of Orleans.
Respected with affection by his men. Then it begins slowly moving inevitably
towards tragedy and fate. The many alarm clocks seem to symbolze this.
He becomes involved with a much younger
woman Sylvia (played by the very popular Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli)
who is a free spirit with a blemished back story and a penchant for older
policemen. She plays Ferrot in the way only a younger woman can play an older
man who has become obsessed with her. But he suspects that there is another
man and slaps her when she hides the fact. That slap and his compulsive behavior
loses much of the viewers sympathy for Ferrot for much of what follows. Because
there is another man. Ganay (François Périer), Commissioner
of Police and Ferrot's friend. He is married to the bedridden Signoret. She
is aware of his affair and approves. That is the first big coincidence; the
second when in a moment of despair and madness Ganay kills his mistress and
Ferrot is put in charge of the investigation. And all the evidence points
to him. Neither man knowing the other's involvement, they both dance as fast
as they can in trying to cover up their involvement. It moves into absurdity
as the walls close in.
