Eine ganz private Affäre

A moody, sexy French detective story with more than a passing nod to the film noir tradition. We enter the strange murky world of private detective François Manéri as he tries to find out what happened to a missing girl. There's a lot to keep track of, and lots of false leads, but the overall achievement is in creating the story through the eyes of the main character, with all his flaws, than in a cut and paste murder mystery. I found the European very natural depiction of the skilled but all too human detective captivating, in stark contrast to the more formulaic characters of American detective stories.

Private detectives, gumshoes films, have never been too numerous in the French cinema. Here, I had not the feeling that Guillaume Nicloux wished to copy any American movie. Anyway Nicloux has always had his own style, his own touch, his own trademark. Nicloux is an unique film maker. I don't particularly love his films, but I have to admit that he is not a common film maker. This movie is a tribute to detective films from the other side of the Atlantic; the tribute to CHINATOWN is so obvious that I won't explain here, not to insult the Imdb viewers intelligence. Just appreciate and enjoy. I really hope so.

...but his sad sack adventures across Paris looking for a girl who's been missing for six months can be fairly engrossing at times. My favourite actors show up here: Aurore Clement and Niels Arestrup as Rachel's parents, Bruno Todeschini as a physiotherapist who knew her, Jeanne Balibar and Laurent Grevill as Maneri's ex wife and her new husband, Clovis Cornillac as the owner of the Apolus sex club (and what a fun place it looks too). Thierry Lhermitte will always be the Club Med host from Les Bronzes for me, but he does a pretty good job playing the run down private eye... that's a bad smoking habit he's got. Then there is the always-alluring Marion Cotillard, who needs to do very little to draw viewers into a scene. All in all, it's too long and has too many characters, but it's a lot of fun to watch.

This is a good Paris film which successfully inserts the viewer into the life of a ageing Parisian lothario and private dick, because let's face it, we've all known one.

Thierry Lhermitte, more a bland celebrity than an actor, although the French would consider him a comedian, despite evidence to the contrary in, say, Le Placard, is captivating as the detective.

The plot is pretty complicated, especially if you are following it in French without subtitles, and serves exclusively to move Lhermitte around and give us a glimpse of his creased, aloof character in a variety of locations including local colour (Paris buses on the outskirts of the city, a suburban street) and exotica (a swingers club, prompting a great gag).

What is pleasing about the film is it is utterly unafraid to trot through the entire canon of private eye cliches without flinching and without becoming laughable. Lhermitte is divorced, lives in a crummy, poorly-lit flat and lives on canned food, principally beer, but remains thin. His wife is remarried, to a balding ex-friend who is good at sex. He is attractive to much younger women, naturally, and has a strong but uneven moral stance regarding others. He has clearly seen Chinatown so manages to acquire injuries requiring unsightly bandages early on. He has an unquestionably loyal older sidekick with an irritating dog! His car is rubbish! Nobody in the film opens their curtains at home or puts on moer than one 20w lamp, despite risking injury from collision with the heavy bits of furniture the French like so much.

Lhermitte, and everyone in the film chainsmokes, save the dog, probably because it is illegal to make dogs smoke. Every his apartment appears there are more and more cartons of cigarettes on every surface, even in the fridge.

This is a very enjoyable shaggy dog story, which like all s.d.s. is heavy on atmosphere and light on delivery.

Despite its clichés -the private is obligatory a divorced man,the plaster on his nose directly comes from Polanski's "Chinatown" ,"une affaire privée" has intellect ,atmosphere and even restrained emotion (Aurore Clement's two scenes are moving ) going for it.The first hour is even intriguing,sometimes recalling some famous works such as "Laura" and more obscure flicks such as "Sylvia" .The director,who is also the writer multiplies the characters at such a speed it's very hard to catch up with the plot,and in the second part,everything seems to fall apart ,well before the implausible de rigueur final unexpected twist (we think here of David Fincher's "the game" and "fight club").But the final cast and credits ,for once is worth a watch :it displays all the characters one by one,with a strange smile on their face ,almost disturbing,as if they were telling us "You' ve been had".Despite of its flaws,"une affaire privée" deserves to be watched.