Barocco - Mord um Macht

....and perhaps his best.This one has qualities and a sense of mystery ,an atmosphere and good acting.

Gérard Depardieu plays two parts and when people learned he played opposite Isabelle Adjani ,they named them " couple of the year" .Let's not forget an excellent support from Marie -France Pisier as a prostitute and Jean-Claude Brialy . The story takes place in Amsterdam and Téchiné made the best of his opportunities: classy thespians and a legendary harbor.

The plot is far-fetched ,but the use of the railway station is entrancing.Trains have a magic cars ,boats and planes do not possess.

This is a strange one. Hyped as a 'variation on Hitchcock's Vertigo', it certainly fails to be that. It is odd to see the very young Isabelle Adjani when she still had puppy fat in her face, as she does not look particularly like Isabelle Adjani at all except in the eyes at that age. It was a big mistake to cast Gerard Depardieu in the role of two characters, one a boxer who is murdered and the other the killer who murdered him for money. When the boxer's girl friend Adjani shows no sign of recognition of Depardieu the killer when they meet, we know the film is hopelessly contrived, because anybody can see that it is Depardieu. This is really stretching things too far. The film is gloomy, washed-out, laden with hopelessness, a bleak vision. Andre Techine the director shows some directorial skill, so that the film is not what one would call 'badly made'. It is instead badly conceived and a failure. Also, it is rather affected to try to achieve some kind of mock-profundity by a 'study' of a girl who wants to get together with the killer of her boy friend. If this is meant to have some deep existential meaning, it flops. The profundity can be measured in millimetres.

Whilst this film does occasionally impress in a few scenes, it is overwhelmingly a major disappointment. The plot is faintly ridiculous, although it might just have been possible, given the right mood and the right actors, to convince the audience that a woman can fall for the murderer of her boyfriend. The trouble is that the film does not seem to have either the right mood or the right actors, and the end result is rather like an unconvincing melee of film noire out-takes.

The acting is noticeably below par throughout, particularly from the lead characters Adjani and Depardieu - all the more surprising that both are now recognised as actors of no mean standing in France. The chemistry between the two lead characters just doesn't feel right, and it looks as if Téchiné made a great error of judgement to cast Depardieu in the role of both Samson and his killer. Certainly, Depardieu makes little effort to differentiate the two characters except by wearing a wig and, as a result, the underlying premise of the plot is lost completely.

However, it is the general mood of the film that is the most irritating aspect of this film. It is just so relentlessly grim and dark that it seems to stifle the plot and imbue the moments of great tension with an air of third-rate melodrama.

It is difficult to believe that, with such a wealth of talent on both sides of the camera, such a film could have failed so badly to hit its mark.