El ladrón de París

If I had watcehd this film without seeing the director's name on the opening credits, I would have bet my last shirt on Claude Chabrol, because of the subject, atmosphere - bourgeoisie, upper middle class critism - and actors directing. Yes, Claude Chabrol could have done this; after all, he did LANDRU, which takes place in the same period as this one, costume drama. Very brilliant movie, where Jean Paul Belmondo is absolutely great, complex, ambivalent.

A pendant piece to VIVA MARIA. Louis Malle certainly, unlike some other fifties hipsters but also along with some other fifties hipsters, knew that something was happening in the sixties but didn't quite know what it was. It was, of course, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll - thousands of people in the street- the whole anti-establishment thing. Malle knew this and he didn't know this. He knew this instinctively but not specifically. In LE VOLEUR he presents a story of a young man, who, upon completing his education and military service, is cheated out of his inheritance and thwarted in love by the greed of the older generation disguising its self interest in pious social formalities. He almost accidentally discovers his talent for burglary and decides that it is his life's calling. This is a trope familiar to French existentialism especially in the films of Bresson and Melville.

Belmondo, as the young man, Georges Randal, decides that he is going to attack the smug bourgeoisie one villa at a time. His sex life was what could be described as extremely contemporary. He lives on the boarders of respectable society. A life on the edge if you will. He shares his values with all sorts of nefarious characters in a sort of underground movement. While some have plans to turn the movement into something like a concrete political organization Belmondo prefers to keep it on a personal and individual level. The chief mover behind the politicizing of the movement is shot down after a political speech made by a reactionary politician. Even after achieving an enviable financial security Belmondo continues with his chosen profession, dedicated to the implication that it continues his never ending war against a hypocritical and selfish bourgeois society. A very sixties concept except that LE VOLEUR is a period picture, set in La Belle Epoch, the decades before the turn of the last century.

VIVA MARIA is also a period picture but more overtly about revolution. Malle certainly had a feeling for the zeitgeist but was, as something of a bourgeois himself, distancing himself from identifying too fully with revolutionary politics as say someone like Regis Debray, a man of Malle's class who fought with Che Guevara in Bolivia.

Certainly as all of the aspects of the cultural revolution of the late sixties came into sharper focus Malle, like the Belmondo character, avoided direct participation or indeed comment upon either the situation or any organized dissidence, preferring to make his statement by going within. His subsequent films included documentaries on India and fiction films dealing with incest in Vichy (LE Soufflé AU COEUR) and a collaborationist youth during the war (LACOMBE LUCIAN). He was to abandon France ten years after LE VOLEUR and made films in America before returning once again, ten years after, to France and a film about the ethics and morality of wartime collaboration (AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS) and, more pointedly, May '68 (MILOU EN MAI). But from VIVA MARIA and LE VOULEUR it was a long time in between laughs.

LE VOLEUR is commendable, above all else, for it's single minded purpose, reflected in the dedication to his vocation by Belmondo. No crappy cinematic tricks. Guys who want to retire do so even after one last job, men who walk into the frame do not turn out to be undercover anythings, coincidences and ironies do not abound at the touch of a screenwriters whim or sloth. The sequence with Charles Denner, who is superb, is a highlight of the film. Geneviève Bujold has never looked more beautiful than in this film. If LE VOLEUR has one fault, it is that there are too many beautiful women in the film, a fault more revealing about the way times and standards have changed, than about Mr. Malle.

LE VOLEUR, along with VIVA MARIA are perfect examples of what the Nouvelle Vague matured into, sort of its middle age, a strong combination of spirit, skill and generous budgets. A rare film to catch but entertaining, exciting, sexy, fun and intellectually stimulating. Highly recommended.

I finally got around to watching a tape of this movie I'd made awhile back, and frankly, I was very disappointed. Jean-Paul Belmondo at the peak of his international fame, Louis Malle ("Atlantic City") directing - how could it go wrong? But regardless, this is just a simple comedy without much depth.

Belmondo plays a French thief around the turn of the century, and the joke is that he and his fellow thieves are robbing the bourgeois and making off with their women. No new ground is broken, and to be honest, even with this simple plot, it isn't particularly well-executed.

Even fans of Belmondo might be bored with this film - instead of his usual droll demeanor, he's dull and just floats from one scene to another without making much of an impact.

So-so entertainment, that's all.

In Paris circa 1900, rakish Georges Randal (Jean Paul Belmondo) is brought up by his rich and egoistic uncle , who robs his inheritance . Georges hopes to marry his cousin Charlotte (Geneviève Bujold) , but his uncle manages himself for her to marry a wealthy neighbour. As an act of vengeance, Georges steals the family jewels. Subsequently , he becomes an expert thief , enjoying the experience so much that he join forces with another swindler , a cunning priest : abbé Félix La Margelle (Julien Guiomar) . He unites other fellow thieves and all of them robbing the bourgeois people and making off with their women . While he meets and falls in love for a great number of beautiful girls : Geneviève Bujold ,Marie Dubois , Françoise Fabian , Marlène Jobert , Bernadette Lafont . The light touch of the masters! Malle makes ... Belmondo takes.

This was a decent and brilliant Louis Malle film, but neither extraordinary , nor notable , but an acceptable and passable picture . Set in the turn of the century , being a very well designed period piece which is filled with subtle characterizations , intrigue , drama , action , and brief bits of humor and irony . These elements are efficiently and compellingly blended by Luis Malle , a director during the¨Nouvelle Vague, New Wave" of 1950s and 1960s , though technically not considered a Nouvelle Vague auteur . Including a splendid protagonist , Belmondo , who along the way gets flirty with a great deal of wonderful and popular French actresses . Cast is frankly well as Jean Paul Belmondo who gives a sympathetic and enjoyable acting , as usual , as a spoiled young who embarks upon a life-time of burglary . Belmondo was at the peak of his international fame , by the time he played his best titles as Pierrot le Fou , Weekend at Dunkirk , Tender Scoundrel , Chinese Adventures in China , Oh ¡ , Backfire, Mississippi Mermaid , among others . Support cast is pretty good , such as : Marie Dubois , Françoise Fabian , Bernadette Lafont , Marlene Jobert and brief appeaarances and cameos from Charles Denner , Anne Vernon , Jean-Luc Bideau and Louis Malle himself as a figurant .

The film displays an engrossing and adequate cinematography by prestigious camera operator Henry Decae . As well as an evocative and atmospheric musical score .The motion picture was professionally directed by Louis Malle , but in fits and starts . Malle is considered to be one of the best French filmmakers . His résumé showed that he had worked as an assistant to filmmaker Robert Bresson when Malle was hired by underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to be a photographer on the Calypso. Cousteau soon promoted him to be co-director of "The Silent World"(1956) . Years later, Cousteau called Malle the best underwater cameraman he ever had . His first film was the intriguing story ¨Lift to the Scaffold¨(58) . Malle's second film, ¨Les amants ¨or "The Lovers"(1958) , starring Jeanne Moreau broke taboos against on screen eroticism. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the obscenity conviction of an Ohio theater that had exhibited "Les Amants." He also made films on the other side of the Atlantic, starting with Pretty Baby (1978), the film that made Brooke Shields an international superstar. The actress who played a supporting role in that film was given a starring role in Malle's next American film, Atlantic City (1980) , that promising actress was Susan Sarandon. In one of his later French films, Au revoir les enfants (1987), Malle was able to find catharsis for an experience that had haunted him since the German occupation of France in World War II. At age 12, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school near Paris that was a refuge for several Jewish students, one of them was Malle's rival for academic honors and his friend . After that , he made ¨Milou en mai¨and ¨Damage¨ with two international actors Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche .In his final film, Vania in 42 Street (1994), Malle again penetrated the veil between life and art as theater people rehearse Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." In that film, Malle worked again with theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn . Malle was married to Candice Bergen, and he succumbed to lymphoma in 1995. Rating : 6/10 . Well worth seeing .

This is a great satire of fin de siecle European society, but satire is not always funny. In fact, this is a tragedy along classic Greek lines, something which only becomes apparent in the final scenes, which give the lie to those critics who accuse Malle of being too sympathetic to his protagonist(s). Some criticize Belmondo's rather flat affect, but I believe that this is intentional, and an essential element of the tragedy. The film is widely recognized as satitirizing the bourgeoisie, but many miss the way it also satirizes the would-be Marxism of some of the protagonists. It is beautifully filmed, with a beautiful, all-star cast. By modern standards, it is a slow film, without much excitement, but it is worth watching, if you have the patience to watch it all the way to the end.