Die Spieler

Brilliant. "When I lose, I see the beauty of the world". The fact that Jacques Dutronc isn't exactly in the same acting league as Bulle Ogier is no drawback at all. In fact, it gives his appearance a "ghost-like" character. You him throwing the fruit away he just bought with his last money, you see him throwing cigars away after just one puff. Here's one unhappy man in search of something he doesn't understand.

Tricheuyrs (1984) is an edgy film about gambling and addiction. Very much 1980's in spots. It's Barbet Schroeder's continuation of his exploratory fictions of ultimate states and experiences of limits: drugs (More, his first film), masochistic enjoyment (Mistress, with Bulle Ogier) and Barfly (on alcoholic drift and crazy love). With Tricheurs, the excitement of the game is staged through a violent addiction to luck and loss: we follow the nihilistic saga of a couple formed by Jacques Dutronc and Bulle Ogier, each serving as a talisman and an accomplice to the other. They're led by the frenzy of the game, from a table of baccarat to a roulette, from one casino to another, from Madeira to Macau. This is an absorbing chronicle of two anti-heroes.

Jacques Dutronc is a gambler, who plays at all the elegant casinos and loses. He meets Bulle Ogier and they click, but he still continues to lose. Then he meets Kurt Raab who recruits him for his cheating operation; Raab is a 'topper', who sneaks in his bets after the roulette ball has stopped. They travel around the world to all the elegant casinos, but lose all the money they win through cheating playing roulette honestly. Then he runs into Miss Ogier again, and they head off on their own operation.

Barbet Schroeder's film contrasts the elegant and ever-expanding casino operations with the raw hunger of the players, and even the cheaters. It's a dry movie, with the hungers of the leads kept below the surface, except for Raab's bizarre insistence that he is the greatest cheater in the world.