The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza)

The Great Beauty won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film two years ago but completely flew under my radar since I usually pay little attention to Hollywood's self-aggrandizing awards gala that, more often than not, equates commercial success, the best technical achievements that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy, or hand-wringing social message films with great art. I spent countless hours watching every genre film produced in Italy in the 60s and 70s that I could find, and countless more hours watching classics from the greatest Italian directors like Fellini and Antonioni, but I had paid little attention to many recent Italian films. Fortunately, I happened upon Criterion's release of The Great Beauty, and the striking cover photo of the Blu-Ray combined with my personal longing to go back to Rome and aimlessly wander its labyrinthian streets made me immediately choose to watch the film that very night. I was rewarded with an experience that made me fall in love with Italian film and Rome all over again.

The Great Beauty is strongly influenced in style and substance by Fellini but director Paolo Sorrentino (who also created the new HBO series The Young Pope) manages to bring his own vision to this modern take on living la dolce vita in Rome today. Rome has not looked this magical and ethereal on screen since the great Fellini films and, once again, the eternal city is a character if not the star of this film. The human protagonist is journalist Jep Gambardella and the film begins as he is celebrating his 65th birthday. Jep published an acclaimed novel years ago and has been living off the celebrity of that novel since, becoming a fixture of the Roman arts, social and literary scene. Jep spends his nights dancing, drinking and sitting in cafes filled with fellow cynics offering biting commentary on everything and everyone around. However, he has never written another novel, instead earning his way with as little effort as possible by writing about art and the social scene. Through all the parties and gallery openings, café conversations and drinks, Jep and those around him seem to be alienated from each other and society.

Shortly after that 65th birthday celebration, Jep learns that his first love has died. These dual events cause Jep to begin to think about his life and the lost opportunities and the ultimate emptiness of the life he chose. During his nostalgic and melancholy reflections, he wanders around the streets of Rome, or hosts parties at his flat overlooking the Colosseum. The film never succumbs to being dire or depressing even though Jep and his "friends" seem lost in a lethargy or ennui that they have come to accept as their chosen world. Ultimately, Jep appears to regret but accept his choices in life.

The film doesn't preach but offers subtle critiques of modern life and the Roman bourgeoisie social scene through the characters and events portrayed. Particularly with some of the greatest human achievements in art and architecture as the backdrop, the endless procession of nightly parties and esoteric conversations seem ultimately empty and vapid. One particularly memorable scene shows Jep amongst a crowd gathered around an ancient Roman aqueduct to watch a piece of performance art. For the centerpiece of the performance, the artist runs and smashes her head into the aqueduct wall. The absurdity of all this human effort going into such empty gestures is inescapable. This is what the promise of his literary career has become – interviewing someone who smashes their head into a wall for an art magazine.

Sorrentino's camera moves through the party crowds capturing impressionistic images from odd angles and, like Fellini, finds many unique characters and stylized faces and figures staring back. He portrays the often carnivalesque atmosphere of modern life juxtaposed with the ancient, stately city surrounding all this activity. It is this duality that is part of the magical atmosphere of Rome, and that dual personality shines through above all else in this film. 

One can see how, surrounded daily by this majestic city, enticed nightly by wonderful parties and interesting people, Jep could lose his ambition and succumb to the easy pleasures. Watching Jep reminisce about his life in Rome is a bittersweet tale that nonetheless balances the melancholy and ennui with the excitement of living la dolce vita. The film ends with Jep contemplating that all this ends in death, but that before that there was life in all its noisy, chaotic beauty. As the camera pans along Tiber at dawn the feeling I leave with is a desire to not let this beauty slip away without making the most of every opportunity.

High-Rise

“And Mrs. Hillman is refusing to clean unless I pay her what I apparently owe her. Like all poor people, she’s obsessed with money.”

After reading High-Rise over 25 years ago, my first thought was that I wanted to make a film adaptation of the JG Ballard novel. The ideas and images conjured in Ballard’s prose connected with me in such a way that I thought if I ever had the chance to direct or write a feature this was my dream project. As my youthful desire to be a filmmaker was not realized, my wish slowly became that someone would take those indelible images from the page to the screen so that I could see what I imagined as I read the book brought to life. Apparently, producer Jeremy Thomas had that same vision for even longer than I did and almost adapted the novel with Nicolas Roeg decades ago. (Oh, to have seen Ballard’s work through the vision of ‘70s era Roeg!) I had faith that this would be a film worth seeing knowing that Thomas had already shepherded two “un-filmable” books successfully to the screen with David Cronenberg, Naked Lunch and Ballard’s other work of genius Crash.

However, it is inevitable that my thoughts about this film will be colored by having read and loved the novel, and by a sense of anti-climax that is bound to be felt after waiting for something so long. Not only will any film adaptation never be as rich and as individual of an experience as reading a great novel, but can any work of art desired for decades be as good as we want it to be? In this case, for me, the answer is no, but it can be a very good film in and of itself.

Essentially High-Rise is a dystopian microcosm of society' class system set in a high-rise apartment block. The rich live on the top with each class stratified onto the lower levels by where they rank on the ladder of economic success. Director Ben Wheatley wisely chooses to set the film in 1975, the year the novel was written. However, where Ballard's prose style is factual and clinical when describing the shocking and bizarre events, Wheatley goes for a more sardonic and grimly comic tone throughout most of the film. This tone combined with the '70s art direction and costumes is very reminiscent of the way Kubrick chose to present the provocative themes in his equally dystopian Clockwork Orange. (Take a look at both movies' posters side by side and you will see a definite homage in that design as well.) The more recent Snowpiercer also tackled similar themes using a train as a microcosm of society but shaped the material into an action movie.

Tom Hiddleston plays Dr. Robert Laing, the newest arrival to the middle (class) floors of the high-rise. It seems that in the British class system (at least in the '70s) a brain surgeon like Laing was considered middle-class. The higher floors are reserved for the old money aristocracy, with the building's owner and architect (Jeremy Irons) reigning over it all from his top floor estate. The tenuous social structure between the have and have nots begins to unravel shortly after Laing moves in and planned power outages begin to plague the lower-class residents. As more indignities to the lower class floors pile up, it does not take long for the building to descend into complete chaos and eventually literal class warfare between floors. The characters are archetypes, the rebel, the self absorbed aristocrat, etc, with Laing functioning as the everyman caught up in this maelstrom.

Wheatley is not concerned with presenting a cohesive narrative as Ballard does, but rather opts for a more impressionistic and episodic mosaic of scenes and images. What it lacks in narrative drive the film makes up for with memorable images and scenes that convey the same wry and ironic social critiques found in the novel. This is Wheatley's first sizeable budget and he does a fantastic job using his resources. The photgraphy, art direction, costumes, music and acting are all first class and bring Ballard's world to life with great style.

Anyone who has read the book will wonder if Wheatley opens the film with the infamous "dog" scene. The first paragraph of Ballard's book may be the most memorable opening hook I have ever read. Anyone who reads that paragraph has to read the rest of the book to find out how the narrator, Laing, came to be in this situation. Yes, he does and, like the entire film, while it works reasonably well it is not as compelling as the opening of the novel.


This is a thought provoking, stylish and entertaining movie that I look forward to seeing again and finding nuances I missed the first time. Still, do yourself a favor and read the book too. Now, who is going to make Concrete Island, the last of Ballard's three greatest books, into a film? Someone step up, please.

Amer

Giallos (Gialli?) are a genre of lurid Italian thrillers released primarily from the late ‘60s through the mid-‘70s. The name giallo (from the Italian word for “yellow”) is derived from the color of the covers of a series of pulp crime and mystery novels popular in Italy at the time. Giallo films took the thriller genre from the page and brought it to sensationalistic, technicolor life. There was always a central mystery in a giallo but it was their style that most set them apart  - a style characterized by operatic flourishes of violence and perverse sexuality. The giallo is indigenous to Italy - it somehow seems to embody the culture in its emotion, passion and flare, as well as with its conservative religious undertones of guilt and innocence. The giallo is an opera of sex and violence and Italian filmmakers created and perfected this form before it ultimately died out in the late ‘70s.

Amer is a French-Belgian co-production whose title translates to “bitter”. Directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani have crafted a modern-day homage to Italian giallos that is at once derivative and original. It is a visually stunning dream fugue of a film that will captivate with evocative imagery and possibly frustrate some viewers with its lack of character and narrative. Amer takes a black gloved switch blade to the giallo formula and slices out all the expository and character scenes, leaving only the stylistic excesses and psychological underpinnings.

The film focuses on three events in the life of the protagonist, Ana, at three different life stages: child, teenager and adult. As a child, Ana lives in a seaside villa that, despite its outward beauty, exudes a darkness and menace. The viewer is shown the house and Ana’s family life through her young eyes, literally. The film tells us that we will be seeing this world through Ana’s eyes from the opening shot – a triple split-screen close-up of Ana’s eyes looking at the viewer. Watching eyes seem to be everywhere in Amer, and everywhere Ana looks she sees something sinister.  The house is populated with strange, shadowy figures, mysterious noises, eyes peeping through keyholes, the corpse of her dead grandfather, and a grandmother who appears to be a witch.

In the next sequence Ana is a teenager out on a trip from the villa into a nearby town with her mother. Ana is now becoming a woman and she senses that the watching eyes are not just mysterious or sinister eyes but have now become the leering eyes of men on the streets and in the shops. The third and final sequence brings the story to a thrilling conclusion. Ana is now an adult and returning to the villa where she grew up. The dreamlike atmosphere continues – she walks from the train station through a town that is deserted in the middle of the day. The eyes looking at and menacing Anna continue to surface throughout this final sequence until it builds to a crescendo of suspense and violence.

Amer plays with extreme close-ups and enhanced ambient sound to build the surreal atmosphere throughout each sequence. The loud clicking of locks or the sound of a black glove being pulled over a hand replace dialog as the most important elements of the soundtrack. In fact, there are only about 3 sentences of dialog in the entire 90-plus minute film. The appropriation of classic giallo soundtrack music from Stelvio Cippriani, Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai works surprising well and is not used gratuitously.

The story is not complex and the characters are merely ciphers for the psychological drama that unfolds. However, the visuals that Cattet and Forzani present, and the fever dream atmosphere they create through both sight and sound are enthralling by themselves. I found myself thinking that this is what a giallo would look like if it had been made by David Lynch. It is best to experience this movie as a waking dream and just sit back, leave logic behind and experience this visceral dream and the nightmarishly beautiful images with your eyes wide open.

Venus in Fur

At times throughout his career, Roman Polanski's films have been overshadowed by his personal life. From a tragic childhood in World War II Poland to the brutal murder of his wife and unborn son to the questionable, or possibly criminal, behavior that led to his exile from the U.S., Polanski's life itself would make a compelling movie. Several documentaries have depicted these events in detail, most recently and famously, Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired, which chronicled the cirucus of events surrounding his latest legal troubles in Switzerland.

Given the short memory and attention span of modern society, the media frenzy over his 2009 captivity and the sordid past events that led to the U.S. extradition request are what resonate most in the public consciousness when Polanski is discussed today. His latest film output has not been popular enough or critically acclaimed enough to swing the public discourse back from his personal life to his artistic life.

However, he is the rare filmmaker who has maintained an exceptionally high level of artistic output throughout his entire career. Even more astonishing is that he has continued this quality output past age 70 and, with his latest film, into his 80s. Even the Hollywood legends like Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock lost their mojo when they reached the golden years of their lives, but Polanski continues to impress even today.

The argument can be made that Woody Allen has maintained high standards well into his 70s and that is somewhat true. However, despite the high quality of much of Allen's recent output, his characters always feel like a septuagenarian’s version of modern people. The characters in Polanski’s films continue to either ring pitch perfect or to tap into psychological traits that make them timeless.

While none of his last three films have been a classic on the level of The Pianist, all are of immensely high quality and full of energy and the creative spirit of an artist that continues to have a relevant voice in the world of cinema. Polanski's latest, Venus in Fur, features only two characters, a director and an actress auditioning for a role in his latest play. The self-reflexive nature of the material is enhanced by the fact that Polanski's wife, Emmanuelle Seigner plays the actress, and the director is played by Mathieu Amalric who looks strikingly similar to a young Polanski.

Like Carnage, Venus in Fur is an adaptation of a play and despite having only one set and mountains of dialog, Polanski’s direction keeps the film from feeling stage bound. As the title suggests, the film uses the 1807 novel Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch as its inspiration. The play within the film is supposed to be an adaptation of that novel. The novels author, Sacher-Masoch, is notable for having his work and name be the source of the term "masochist" so unsurprisingly the themes of submission, misogyny and self-identity are explored throughout Polanski's film.

Venus in Fur opens with a beautiful gliding shot down a Paris street. As a thunderstorm ominously builds the camera pushes in on a small theater. The coming storm ads a nice touch of the fantastique to the proceedings, as it almost seems to be bringing or heralding the arrival of the actress, Vanda. She arrives at the theater just as the director, Thomas, is about to leave at the end of the day.

Vanda, also the name of the lead character in the play, is a mystery. Even though she is not on Thomas’ audition call sheet, she has a copy of the entire play that he has not shared with anyone. She is clad in leather and clearly prepared to read for the part of the fictional dominatrix Vanda. Despite protests from the tired director, she forcefully maneuvers her way into auditioning.

Vonda carries a huge, almost magical, bag which soon produces the perfect Victorian dress as a costume. Inevitably, Thomas finds himself reading the submissive male character in his play opposite Vonda. Slowly, Thomas becomes caught up in the part and Vonda leads him on a psychological journey through his own fears and darkest desires. This literal role reversal between the previously controling director and submissive actor provides a nice allegory for the evolution and current state of human sexual relations and identity.

The dialogue in the film is smart and quick, and this is one subtitled movie where I had to pause several times to make sure I was catching every word. It is a pleasure these days to see a film where the words matter as much as the images. Both Seigner and Amalric do a wonderful job bringing those words and characters to life, while Polanski’s direction gives this theater piece great style through his subtle use of a roving camera and sound effects.

Touching as it does on some of the usual Polanski themes and obsessions, sexual politics, human desires and self-identity, Venus in Fur fits nicely into his ouvre alongside such classics as Cul de Sac, What? and The Tenant. A slightly perverse, yet fun and funny movie, Venus in Fur takes the viewer on psychological trip through the dark side of sexual power games. Like Thomas, you may step out of the theater a little different than when you entered.

The Ipcress File & Funeral in Berlin

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s Michael Caine was the man. Whether playing a spy, a lothario or a writer, Caine had an every-man quality that made his characters sympathetic. Terrence Stamp was hip and bohemian, Malcolm McDowell was young and cocky, but Michael Caine had a working-class cool. In a relatively short time Caine starred in some of the best British films of the era, including Get Carter, Pulp, The Italian Job, and Alfie.

Caine's first major starring role was as the downtrodden spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965). The film is based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Len Deighton that was published shortly after the first Bond film, Dr. No, was released. The character of Harry Palmer is the anti-Bond. He lives in a small apartment, wears thick glasses, and is burdened and constrained by overwhelming bureaucracy. He is also not working undercover out of any sense of honor or love of adventure. Palmer was an army sergeant drafted into the intelligence service to work off his prison sentence for black marketeering.

In The Ipcress File a number of prominent Western scientists are being kidnapped and brainwashed. Their brilliant minds are being wiped clean before they are returned to their countries. Palmer is sent to find out who is behind this plot and immediately gets in trouble by calling for an unauthorized and unproductive raid and accidently shooting a CIA agent. Palmer does manage to find the only clue to what is happening to the scientists when he turns up a piece of audiotape marked "IPCRESS". He just needs to figure out what IPCRESS means and what it has to do with the brainwashed scientists.

Despite the very Bondian plot synopsis, The Ipcress File is not jet-setting spy film. This is a gloomy, leisurely paced film with gritty London locations and fistfights instead of exotic locales and high-tech gadgets. The intelligence service headquarters is an old, dingy office disguised as an employment bureau, not a glamorous historic government building. The office manager is an old crone many years away from ever having been an attractive Miss Moneypenny. All of these elements lend a more realistic atmosphere and capture the real type of grunt work involved in the spy game. This game is not played in tuxedoes while sipping martinis and playing craps. It is played in the shadows of back alleys by civil servants clad in old overcoats who are trying to make a living without getting a bullet in their back.

The Ipcress File is a spy procedural and not a spy adventure but there is subtle humor lurking within the details of these procedures. Palmer is overwhelmed with bureaucratic paperwork and every action or request requires triplicate T1-04s or a TX82. Amid the dry humor and procedural elements the film does include some subdued but tense action scenes and even a Manchurian Candidate style psychedelic brainwashing. The Ipcress File offers a nice, grim alternative to James Bond glitter and kicks off this spy series in fine fashion.

Also adapted from a Len Deighton novel, the second Harry Palmer film, Funeral in Berlin, followed one year later and repeats the same basic formula with a more intricately plotted cold war scenario. Caine returns as the reluctant spy caught up in the decidedly unexcotic machinations of the spy game. This time, Palmer is sent to the divided city of Berlin to assist with the defection of Colonel Stok, a Russian officer in charge of intelligence in East Berlin. After meeting Colonel Stok, Palmer doubts his sincerity about wanting to relocate to the west. However, Stok passes a test Palmer arranges to gauge his honesty, so plans are made to work with members of the Berlin underworld to sneak the general across the iron curtain.

In another reversal of the Bondian spy clichés, while in Berlin Palmer is also seduced by a beautiful woman named Samantha Steele. Rather than being the suave aggressor, Palmer is the passive partner in this exchange when he accepts a ride to a party from Samantha only to end up instead at her house for a more intimate get together. As with Colonel Stok, Palmer is suspicious of Samantha and he gradually discovers that her secrets are also connected to his mission in Berlin.

In addition to being a reluctant rather than predatory ladies man, Caine's Palmer is also not a cold-blooded killer. At one point he is not only given a license to kill but is ordered to kill, and he refuses to let his government turn him into a hired assassin. The person he is told to kill is far from innocent but Palmer disobeys his orders because he will not let himself be turned into a murderer.

Everyone has something to hide in this film, and the maneuvers and double crosses play out in amid the grim, authentic cold war atmosphere of Berlin. The action again develops slowly and although it lacks some of the humor of The Ipcress File, the plot and locations of Funeral in Berlin make this the better of the first two Harry Palmer movies. Both films are genre-bending spy movies offering a refreshing portrait of the workaday life of a secret agent navigating both bureaucacy and bullets during the cold war hysteria of the 1960s.

The Skin I Live In (La Piel que Habito)

Pedro Almodovar is the most successful and acclaimed Spanish director of the last 30 years. Although he makes accessible, adult movies that blend comedy, melodrama and pop culture into his own unique style, Almodovar is categorized in the U.S. as an art-house director and his films have never received mainstream commercial success. Although he has won an Academy Award for best foreign language film and several Cannes Film Festival awards, Almodovar has never abandoned his native Spain for the lure of Hollywood money.

The Skin I Live In (2011) is somewhat of a departure for Almodovar in that it incorporates traditional horror film elements into his melodramatic formula. Antonio Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a renowned scientist who is attempting to develop synthetic human skin. His wife died years earlier in a car accident and he is trying to create skin that will be impervious to fire and cuts. However, Dr. Ledgard is soon revealed to be an obsessed “mad scientist” that has actually kidnapped a young woman named Vera in order to have a test subject for his skin experiments.

Dr. Ledgard keeps Vera locked in his isolated mansion, bound in a compression bandage to keep her synthetic skin graft in place. Vera is a morose and mysterious figure who looks more like a mummy than a living woman. After a visit from the housekeeper’s son ends in brutality and violence, the film begins to reveal the tangled web of sinister events that has led both Ledgard and Vera to this dark and twisted existence.

At times, the film’s outlandish plot has comical coincidences but they always lead to gruesome and disturbing developments. The Skin I Live In reminded me a of a modern-day giallo with its sometimes absurd but always diabolical plot twists and turns amidst the picturesque European locations. It is difficult to discuss any events in this movie without giving away the myriad of surprises Almodovar presents throughout the film. Suffice to say that Ledgard and Vera both have vicious secret pasts that are revealed in flashback, and eventually they become lovers. However, as one is captor and the other captive this affair always carries an ominous undertone of menace.

While The Skin I Live In is filled with dark and violent scenes, Almodovar keeps the tone from being overly bleak through his vivid mis-en-scene and the melodramatic quality of the script and performances. Casting Antonio Banderas in the lead is part of the key to keeping the film from becoming a parade of misery. Banderas, who Almodovar made a star through numerous early movies, brings those movie star looks to the role of a mad scientist. The audience wants to like him and feels sympathy for him at times because even when he is committing atrocious acts he never projects the quality of someone who is truly evil. Whether Banderas is capable as an actor to even project those emotions is debatable but you can judge that for yourself.

The Skin I Live In obviously borrows heavily from the surreal classic Eyes Without A Face, but it does so with a knowing wink. Almodovar uses both Eyes Without A Face and Frankenstein as the genre canvas on which to paint his own original piece of modern pop-gothic art. He takes horror genre elements and builds a 21^st Century version of those classic tales by adding a layer of sexuality that those earlier films could only hint at through obtuse subtext. The classic mind-body schism is contemplated through the lens of gender identity, sexuality and even love. Almodovar is contemplating not only what makes us human but also what makes humans male or female and asking where human sexuality fits on the continuum between the mind and body.

While this is an enjoyable film for all the reasons I have mentioned, it is not in the same league with Eyes Without A Face. That film may not ever be equaled for the quality and subtlety it used even while incorporating elements of medical horror in its contemplation of the pain of human loss and suffering. Almodovar’s modern version of medical horror is an interesting experiment and it is nice to see a filmmaker step out of his comfort zone and tackle an unfamiliar genre with such genuine affection and verve.

Available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures.

Monsieur Hire

This film demonstrated to me that, despite some inherent flaws, the system Netflix uses to suggest related titles can sometimes make appropriate choices and lead subscribers to discover films that might otherwise remain unwatched. This little gem popped up on my Netflix account as another title I might enjoy based on the fact that I had recently watched a few French thrillers. Monsieur Hire's description of murder, voyeurism and suspense sounded intriguing so I gave it a try. While the film certainly does contain all the previously mentioned thriller elements it is also a moving character study of an isolated, lonely outsider who yearns for nothing more than deep human connection and love. Monsieur Hire (1998) is a very good film whose European origins come through in the fact that it is a slow-paced, intelligent tale instead of some high concept, nail-biting thriller. 

Hire is an isolated loner living in an apartment building where neighbors whisper about him behind his back and children play pranks on him. In response to this Hire has become a loner with a tough exterior who has convinced himself he does not care to belong because he despises people anyway. He lives a very orderly and solitary existence, going to work each day and then returning home to listen to music and eat a quiet dinner. Hire doesn’t interact with people except to conduct his work (as a tailor) or to meet the required social formalities, such as saying “Good morning” to passersby. He also going to the bowling alley where, despite not being friendly with other bowlers, he is admired for his skill at the game.

Instead of participating in life he observes others, for Hire is a voyeur. Each night he puts on the same piece of classical music, dims the lights and watches a woman who lives in an apartment across the courtyard. Night after night he watches her read, sleep, get dressed or make love to her boyfriend. Rather than being appalled by his behavior, one feels sadness for Hire because you sense his loneliness and yearning to connect with another human, and his complete inability to do so. His spying, while erotic, does not seem to be the fulfillment of some sexual fantasy but rather the fulfillment of a human need.

A wrench is thrown into Hire’s reclusive but orderly world when a murdered woman is discovered not too far from his apartment building. A detective begins to investigate the murder and soon seems to have his sights set on Hire as a likely culprit. He begins asking him difficult questions that Hire answers defensively. Shortly after becoming a murder suspect, Hire is caught peeping by the object of his gaze across the courtyard. However, rather than going to the police the woman, named Alice, introduces herself to Hire and after some awkward moments becomes friendly. Although it is an odd and awkward friendship to say the least.

One particularly moving and erotic scene shows Hire following Alice and her boyfriend to a boxing match. Watching them from afar he sees the boyfriend leave her to talk excitedly with some friends. Hire moves up next to Alice and then begins to delicately touch her breasts beneath her blouse. She does not move or complain and they stand together in the crowd, sharing an intimate moment without speaking or looking at each other.

What are her motives for pursuing this odd friendship or secret affair? Alice has a boyfriend and Hire is an unattractive, socially awkward voyeur. The murder is somehow involved in this odd triangle but the audience is not quite sure who to trust – Hire, the boyfriend or Alice. No more can be revealed without spoiling the movie and the final act extends the tension to the bitter end but in a delicate and absorbing manner rather than through Hollywood set pieces.

The film is based upon a book by Belgian author Georges Simenon and while I am not familiar with his novels this is the second film I have seen based on his work. Les Fantômes du Chapelier (The Hatter’s Ghost) by the great Claude Chabrol shares many themes and characteristics with Monsieur Hire and is another entertaining picture for anyone who enjoys French thrillers. Both films involve a murder and feature isolated, reclusive tradesmen distrusted by provincial neighbors. Hire is a much more sympathetic character than the protagonist of Les Fantômes du Chapelier, and ultimately it is this sympathy for Hire that makes this modest thriller such an engaging film. Simenon is listed as having authored some 300 books and given the large amount of adaptations of his work that have been done by French directors I think I will be searching for more hidden gems among his oeuvre.

Available on DVD from Kino International and streaming through Netflix.