Monsieur Hire (1989)
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 82m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, André Wilms
Synopsis:
A tailor becomes the chief suspect in the murder of a young girl because of his idiosyncratic aloofness, but knows the identity of the culprit, whom he protects because he is in love with his mistress, and accessory.
Review:
The distillation of Leconte's cinema: tightly written, finely acted and carefully framed. Blanc is mesmerising as the somewhat repellent Hire, who snaps violently at prostitutes and abandons his pet mice on the train lines, but is rendered sympathetic and vulnerable by his noble passion for the undeserving Alice. Bonnaire's performance, in turn, is poised subtly between scheming hussy and spellbound martyr to his obsessive peeping and pawing. In short, it is a film rich in ambiguities, right down to the rather geekish, duffle-coated police inspector, who treats his quarry with nothing but contempt, but whom successive viewings dignify as the sole confidant to the secret of Hire's innocence.
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 82m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, André Wilms
Synopsis:
A tailor becomes the chief suspect in the murder of a young girl because of his idiosyncratic aloofness, but knows the identity of the culprit, whom he protects because he is in love with his mistress, and accessory.
Review:
The distillation of Leconte's cinema: tightly written, finely acted and carefully framed. Blanc is mesmerising as the somewhat repellent Hire, who snaps violently at prostitutes and abandons his pet mice on the train lines, but is rendered sympathetic and vulnerable by his noble passion for the undeserving Alice. Bonnaire's performance, in turn, is poised subtly between scheming hussy and spellbound martyr to his obsessive peeping and pawing. In short, it is a film rich in ambiguities, right down to the rather geekish, duffle-coated police inspector, who treats his quarry with nothing but contempt, but whom successive viewings dignify as the sole confidant to the secret of Hire's innocence.
Country: FR
Technical: col/scope 82m
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, André Wilms
Synopsis:
A tailor becomes the chief suspect in the murder of a young girl because of his idiosyncratic aloofness, but knows the identity of the culprit, whom he protects because he is in love with his mistress, and accessory.
Review:
The distillation of Leconte's cinema: tightly written, finely acted and carefully framed. Blanc is mesmerising as the somewhat repellent Hire, who snaps violently at prostitutes and abandons his pet mice on the train lines, but is rendered sympathetic and vulnerable by his noble passion for the undeserving Alice. Bonnaire's performance, in turn, is poised subtly between scheming hussy and spellbound martyr to his obsessive peeping and pawing. In short, it is a film rich in ambiguities, right down to the rather geekish, duffle-coated police inspector, who treats his quarry with nothing but contempt, but whom successive viewings dignify as the sole confidant to the secret of Hire's innocence.