Mon père, il m'a sauvé la vie

It's not the first time José Giovanni has tackled this burning subject.In the seventies,two of his movies deal with it:the first one "2 Hommes dans la Ville' casts Alain Delon as a man who ends his life on the guillotine:the movie is very one -sided -with a cardboard character for the great Michel Bouquet !-,but the final scene packs a real wallop.More implicitly,in 1976, "comme un boomerang" serves as some kind of blueprint for was to become "Mon Père...":a young man has killed a cop and now he is in jail and his father (Delon again) , a former gangster,desperately tries to save him.Unfortunately,who could buy the philosophy of this work? Justice is unfair with the Rich whose biggest sin is to be rich!!who could swallow that?

"Mon père" is a different matter,because it's Giovanni's story itself.André Cayatte's influences ("nous sommes tous des assassins" ,1952)are constantly in evidence in the first hour .And the impact has diminished since Cayatte 's days because of the abolishment of death penalty in France by François Mitterrand in 1981.Flashbacks are not necessary very original and anyway I must admit that I'm not a Bruno Cremer fan.The last fifteen minutes are redundant and flatter the director's ego.It's the success story all over again and it destroys a bit of the emotion.Besides,the movie succumbs to the worst clichés of melodrama:"yes,the cards did tell he would survive and become famous"even if it happened in real life,is-it necessary to feature such elements in a two-hour movie?

Despite these reservations which some will find severe,"Mon père" is a movie which deserves to be seen ,because of its documentary look at the death row ,and the depiction of the prisoners' terror is filmed by GIovanni with conviction ,because he 's been through it all.

After "le trou" ,which was a Jacques Becker masterpiece -Becker was dying at the time and the failure of the escape was a harsh metaphor for the impossibility for a man to escape death-,Giovanni became a talented scriptwriter and a minor but sometimes endearing generous director whose best works are his first ones :"la Loi du Survivant" ,the exotic and underrated "le Rapace" ,"Dernier Domicile Connu" and "Où est passé Tom?".Giovanni's scores -often by the late François de Roubaix- are always tasteful .

I'm really impressed by the character of Manu, which is in fact the autobiographical version of José Giovanni, the writer and director. I think I might even start reading Giovanni's books! Great acting also by both Bruno Cremer (father) and Vincent Lecoeur (son).

Jose Giovanni said that only Bruno Cremer could play the role of his father. And Giovanni made the right choice. Bruno Cremer is very moving as Jo, the father of Manu. This father is not well loved (because misunderstood) by his son, but anyway, he made the maximum, even talk to the victim's family to obtain that his son doesn't die by the guillotine. The movie is well constructed, with good actors such as Rufus, in a part very different from what we are used too. Hitorically, this movie is interesting too because of the painting of the 50's and some details about the prisons and the "Death quarter". I watched this movie several times. If you buy the DVD (in French), don't forget to watch the commented film. Jose Giovanni comments the movie all along and explains many things, adding details about this period of his life.

I watched this movie in the movie festival in Osaka and I talked to Vincent Lecoeur. I am happy about his performance. He is a good actor to play the role as Manu. He is well talented, evidently. His role is totally different from that in the former movies. He is not really famous in Japan right now, but I want to see how he will turn out in the next work.