Das Auge

Behind his front of overflowing bitterness and cynicism, private eye Louis Beauvoir (Serrault), nicknamed L'Oeil, is deeply missing of a child to protect and cheer, while he is tracking down a serial killer, Catherine Leiris (The iris)(Adjani).

The followed young woman will be just half-real, she'll be rather like the private eye dreams her.

Like a picture of innocence in his memory, she should stay untouched and untouchable, so he will involve himself in her flight. Through his eyes and ears, she is a mythomaniac orphan, she has misbehaved, she considers herself as garbage, but she wants fondness, getting a substitutive father's attention by murdering men and women who get too close to her.

The dream can last as long as the soliloquizing self-designated father can stay in tune with his substitute daughter, despite awakening bodies on their road, every bodies that did not have sleepwalker's stare and beat.

We, as viewers, wish the great encounter and the forgiveness. We dream. We are willing to roam.

A long time after we are supposed to be awake and down to earth, we are still humming the main musical theme, or La Paloma, or Schubert's lieder, who all played in the movie.

Mortelle randonnée is an ambiguous and dark fairy tale for adults, sprinkled with bridges and winks. After many viewing, there is still to explore and enjoy in Mortelle randonnée, at least in the version I saw (118 min.).

Mortelle randonnée is only a movie, not somebody. A movie does not think it is good. Only people can think Mortelle randonnée is good, or think it is not. It is a matter of taste. Critics who attribute thoughts or claims to movies, instead of ascribing them to film-makers or critics, should perhaps visit a psychiatrist.

The French love for American crime novels has been written about many times. Jim Thompson's works have been adapted by many of the leading directors. Truffaut's early career was based largely on this genre; he made Shoot the Pianist from David Goodis's novel, and many of Chabrol's films are taken from American pulp. Claude Miller made his second film Dites-lui que je l'aime from Patricia Highsmith's This Sweet Sickness.

In Mortelle Randonnee, Miller is working with Marc Behm's novel The Eye of the Beholder, which I haven't read. I suppose Miller chose to throw out most of the plot elements of Behm's book; that's the usual practice in France. The theme of obsessional love of a man for the girl he believes to be his daughter is triumphantly brought to life by a great cast, aided by Carla Bley's richly melancholic music (post-modern brass band?), Pierre Lhomme's lovely camera-work (those rain-slicked night shots, the sad neon lights on hotel fronts), the expert choice of sets (Helmut Newton would have loved that German health spa where Catherine meets the lesbian Cora).

Finally, the wonderful cast: Michel Serrault so wistful as the private investigator preparing an endless series of cover-ups of Adjani's killings, he's as good here as he was in Garde à vue; Isabelle Adjani living on her jangled nerves as she criss-crosses Europe in search of new prey; Geneviève Page (who I remember from Belle de jour--the brothel keeper) as the crisp director of the detective agency Serrault works for; the startling transformation of the gorgeous Stéphane Audran into a homely housewife--what a makeup job--who is also tracking Adjani. The last act is darker and more anguished than the preceding ones, the viewer will have to resist the urge to ask what happened to the comic bits.

Mortelle Randonnée is arguably one of France's best noir ever. And one of Isabelle Adjani's brightest hour. You unfortunately have to understand french to fully appreciate Michel Audiard's brilliant, darkly humorous dialogs (and especially Serreault's monologues). Claude Miller's direction is at once classy and precise (very similar to his work on L'Accompagnatrice), while Pierre Lhomme's cinematography is lush when needed, gritty when necessary (mainly during the last third). I read a few bad reviews here and there and I must add, and I know I'm not the first, that the States version, not only the recent DVD but also the TV version and the old VHS, well, has always been the truncated, 95 min. cut. Now, the movie showed everywhere else in the world runs 120 min. sharp. Think about it: it doesn't only mean that almost quarter of the movie is absent, it also means that the editing, fatally, is different, so is the rhythm, the feel, the movie altogether. I saw the DVD and frankly, while the transfer's OK, it doesn't make much of an impression, but then again, think that almost half an hour's gone. I never understood that thing with American distributors and foreign films, as if American moviegoers needed shorter, tighter movies so it won't be too much of a shock. That's ridiculous. Any moviegoer, American or whatever, that goes to the theater and buys a ticket for an Adjani/Serreault movie is obviously not looking for The Rock or Paul Walker. Well, that's what I think anyway. The rating, of course, applies to the official 120 min. version. If you have a chance to see it, don't miss it. A real gem.

The agency where the middle-aged private detective Beauvoir "The Eye" (Michel Serrault) works is hired by a couple to follow their son that is meeting a woman. Beauvoir is a bitter man that misses his daughter Marie that was taken by her mother years ago, leaving behind only a photo. Soon he finds that the youngster is having an affair with the gorgeous Catherine Leiris (Isabelle Adjani) and Beauvoir imagines that she might be Marie. Out of the blue, Beauvoir sees Catherine dumping the body of the man in a lake, but he does not report his finding. He follows Catherine that travels to another place and discovers that she is a serial-killer that misses her father and kills her lovers. Beauvoir protects Catherine and falls in love with her. When he finally meets her, he invites Catherine for a drink after hours. What will happen to them?

"Mortelle randonnée" is a weird, boring and overrated neo-noir directed by Claude Miller. The plot is repetitive about two needy persons, one that misses his daughter and the other that misses her father, and annoying. It should be shorter and shorter. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Ronda Mortal" ("Mortal Round")

Note: On 12 September 2023, I saw this film again.

Mortelle randonée is a brilliant and somewhat noir-ish thriller with a subtle twist of comedy. Isabelle Adjani's beauty has never been more glowing than here as the central femme fatale, and Michel Serrault manages to be both touching and very funny as the lonesome private eye, in search of a long lost daughter. As an added bonus Carla Bley's sexy and jazzy score is simply stunning and makes this overlooked gem a definite must-see. Director Claude Miller has had a long impressive career – he started out working for Truffaut – but only rarely has his work been this relaxed, cool and yet still magnificently melodramatic. The inferior "Eye of the Beholder" (1999) was based on the same novel (and Ewan McGregor was way to young for the part). The Wellspring DVD contains only heavily edited American release and this version simply doesn't work. Wait for someone to release this wonderful film uncut.(actually TF1 already have - with French subtitles only!)