Max et les ferrailleurs

Few people know it,but Claude Sautet was first a film noir connoisseur.His first work,"classes tout risques" was beating Jean -Pierre Melville at his own game;the follow-up ,"l'arme à gauche" ,is difficult to see nowadays ,but if you can ,do not think twice.

In the seventies,from "les choses de la vie" onwards,Sautet became the cinema de qualité director .I mean it pejoratively.Whereas "les choses de la vie" remains watchable today ,thanks to a sensational editing,the other works such as "Cesar et Rosalie " "Vincent François Paul et les autres" "Mado" are depicting a bourgeois life ,speaking of people "in danger of despair"(Sautet Dixit) but with an optimism that was almost unbearable in the crisis of the seventies.The screenplays became very loose,without any dramatic progression .You can sum up "Cesar et Rosalie" like this :"Rosalie loves Cesar ,but she also loves David.What will become of her ?":everything taking place in desirable mansions ,what a contemporary critic aptly called " un espace Cardin" This is two-bit psychological drama ,with ponderous symbolism,as "Mado" will confirm with its infuriating scene where the cars get boggeddown in the mud .a critic said then "it's the movie that gets bogged down itself.

"Max et les ferrailleurs " is a different matter;by combining the film noir side of the two first opus with what will be developed (in a very gauche way) in the "psychological" future films ,Sautet brings it all back home.It stands out as his most sustained piece of work in the seventies.An absolutely intriguing work,with a beautiful Romy Schneider who keeps the audience waiting,only appearing after 30 minutes.Her relationship with cop Piccoli is very shady,sometimes recalling the Fonda/Sutherland one in Pakula's "Klute" :it really stands comparison with it.A wonderful depiction of a popular milieu,in the suburbs of Paris (Nanterre) ,where the secondary characters seem to be out of a Duvivier or a Clouzot work.But it's finally the Jacques Becker spirit Sautet captures here ,and it's really too bad that,after such an interesting movie,he fell into the trap of the academic cinema de qualité.

This is a very well acted and directed police story about a French detective investigating a gang of thieves which is headed by an old friend of his. What begins as a cynical film about violence and prostitution turns into a tender love story.

Claude Sautet emerged at the tail end of the Nouvelle Vague and was undoubtedly one of the most gifted directors to have surfaced in the late 1960s, having first cut his teeth as script writer, cameraman, assistant director. Such complete knowledge of the entire cinema spectrum only assisted Sautet in cranking out wonderful flicks like MAX, UN COEUR EN HIVER. LES CHOSES DE LA VIE, QUELQUES JOURS AVEC MOI, among others.

In MAX, he is assisted by very effective cinematography by René Matelin, and Sautet himself had an important hand in the script, which is logical and credible, with always impeccably dressed detective Max paying protitute Schneider out of his own pocket to win his way to a potential thief's heart. NB - the reason I dock a star is that initially the aim of Max's operation was to catch in the commission of crime a certain Carmona, but the latter is never seen and after a while seems to have been forgotten.

Through the exceedingly sexy Schneider, we see Max sell the plan of a possible bank robbery to Schneider who in turn passes it on to non-customer, regular lover Bernard Fresson, a poor devil who earns his living from brute strength work and leaps at the opportunity of scoring easy dough. Georges Wilson is superb as Max's boss, aware of the consequences and injustice of forcing a criminal situation but willing to help one of his best detectives after the latter had bungled a previous operation.

The whole film turns around the relationship between Piccoli and Schneider, a prostitute who is happy to earn money without having to move her hips but who begins to get frustrated by Max's distant behavior, even if they kiss and you sense true love between them.

Ultimately, this well done film is about loyalty and betrayal, about overstepping the boundaries of legal and police work, and sticking to those cornerstones of justice, and it certainly had me thinking about those variants for several days.

Highly recommended. 9/10.

Excellent crime drama, beautifully underplayed by Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider. Good story with a beginning, a middle and a surprise ending. You'll think about this film for days afterwards and want to see it again. If you love movies, you'll love this one. It will make you want to see more of Claude Sautet's work. [I have not as yet].

Max (Michel Piccoli) was once a judge but resigned, frustrated by letting guilty perps go due to lack of evidence. He joins the Paris Police Force and becomes a detective. Same thing happens - he can't arrest guilty mobsters for the same reason. As this obsession begins to consume him, he devises a plan, which amounts to a sting operation. He hopes this will restore some respect for truth, justice and the French way.

He befriends a prostitute who is also the girlfriend of a small time hood, who was once a childhood friend. Complications arise (you knew that, didn't you?), as the girl is attractive and comes with a heart. Max is stoic as well as obsessed and tries hard not to let sentiment interfere with his plan.

The film's pacing is uneven and involves a great deal of table-setting, so the film takes a while to get going. All the action takes place in the last 20 minutes - be ready to check your watch several times. But the ending is worth the wait, and that's as far as I can go without giving it away. Piccoli gives a thoughtful performance as a man driven by his conception of justice. He is tall and lean and is a commanding presence throughout. Romy Schneider as the bimbo gives what must be her best performance after years of fluff and junk.

This was apparently the film's US premiere as it was not shown here in its initial release. It played at Lincoln Center, NYC, 8/12.