La horse

When he discovers his grandson, Marx Porel, has two hundred milion francs worth of heroin, Jean Gabin destroys it. Then the criminal for whom Porel has been holding it comes and demands the drugs and the man, and threaten his family and farm. Gabin shoots him, hides the body, sinks the crook's car in the swamp and sticks his grandson in the potato cellar. His cattle are stampeded and killed, his barn is burnt. Gabin gives his orders but no explanation to his family and workers, despite the police taking an interest.

This being a Gabin film, I was never in any doubt as to how it would turn out. Indeed, the idea of a multi-billion dollar mob of criminals going against Gabin is soberly funny. Gabin is quite believable as the stiff-necked, autocratic proprietor of a family farm in Calvados, just as he is in everything.

This one was the first of a series of "rural" thrillers which began to appear in the first part of the seventies.We can also mention "la veuve Couderc" "les granges brûlées" and mainly "l'affaire Dominici",a true story which also featured Gabin,in a part very similar to the one he played in "la horse" .

The clannishness in a rural milieu was not new in 1971: Becker's great "Goupi Mains Rouges" is the granddaddy of "la horse" .Granier-Deferre was never looked upon as an auteur and however his movie has stood the test of time quite well.It's a short movie (about 85 min) and the audience is never bored.Gabin is excellent in this part of a grumpy die-hard farmer.He rules over his family and no one dares to contradict him.He lives in a world that no longer exists but he is not prepared to accept another one,so the others must follow.He never contradicts himself,and even if it's difficult to side with him,because taking the law into your hands is hard to swallow for a normal human being,one cannot deny Gabin's behavior its internal logic. The villains -traffickers in drugs- are cardboard characters but it does not matter,cause it's Gabin's one man show.When he learns his grandson is involved in this dirty business,he sees red: no one in his family has already been arrested ,and his family is sacred,the only way of getting out of this mess is striking back.

That's a movie where Jean Gabin played a character very close to his real life, because the great French actor as a peasant, besides studios lots, this was his life, his DNA, his purpose. He made movies only to buy lands and take care of his farm, his horses, his cattle. So, you see, this role was made for him. For L'AFFAIRE DOMINICI, it will be more or less the same. The family head among peasants, but of course in another formula. Here a bunch of hoodlums, drug traffic high scale gangsters, are dealing with ordinary but die hard peasants. This emphasizes on the contrast between those urban villains and the good countryside men. Typical French crime film form the late sixties. A cult film for Gabin fans. And the music score is fabulous too.

I like the 70s rural french feel.

Gabin still as mojo.

I tought the photography was good for what it is.

Any review under 5 are too harsh.

Recommended.

"La horse" is the kind of movie no one mentions but it is definitely one you must have seen as it's superb! We are put in some French village at where everybody knows everyone and at where we find a farmer's family that's been led by the dictatorial Jean Gabin who only believes in one word "work". The man's dream got totally splattered when one of his sons is involved in drug traffic and brings the white powder to the farm. Gabin thinks that throwing it away solves all problems but of course the mob wants their stuff back... What then follows is a superb exciting piece of a movie in where the contrasts between the old French and the new ones are explored in great 70's cinematographic arts. Superb movies that is over before you realize it. Also musical score by the godlike Serge Gainsbourg!