Le chien

Alain Delon and his rival and pal Jean Paul Belmondo have both in common to have made ONE film, where they both play characters, lonely characters, and their dog. Alain Delon during his early years of career - LE CHIEN, this very one, and Jean Paul Belmondo for his very last movie: UN HOMME ET SON CHIEN. Here, Delon announces unvoluntarily his character seven years later in LE SAMOURAI: the loneliness of a man with a pet; here a dog, and in LE SAMOURAI a bird. This small feature is pretty interesting and also unavoidable for any Alain Delon's fan. And I am sure only a few of them know this one. I had never heard of it before watching it today.

"Le Chien " must be one of the rare MTV movies of the era which features a silver screen star ,and a very famous at that:Alain Delon,in 1962,after Visconti's and Clément's works was already a superstar ;why he agreed to play in a low budget MTV work is pretty amazing.

Dare it be said:Delon is miscast ;he is too handsome to portray successfully a lonesome man in love ....with his dog ;in fact,the only scenes that are still fine today are the ones with the animal. Besides ,François Chalais ,a reporter and a cinema historian,must have loved the Nouvelle Vague flicks very much ,for his movie resembles theirs:the interminable scene in the park strongly recalls that of Cleo and Antoine in "Cléo De 5 à 7",released the same year.There are numerous hints at WW2,for the girl the hero meets (Elke Sommer) is German;don't we learn that his parents died in the concentration camps ?The definitive reconciliation of France and Germany took place the following year (1963) ,thanks to De Gaulle and Adenauer.The barman says he knows nice people among the Germans,but a bit reluctantly.

This "Le Chien" found its director succumbing to all the Nouvelle Vague vices :filming on location,very loose screenplay,fortune cookie philosophies,"deep" meanings ,endless wanderings ,cult of youth .I Wonder what could have been the TV viewers' reaction to such a deadly dull work :considering the TV series and dramas which were made at the time,I guess they must have needed some aspirin.

This is a young Delon contemplating life. It has its moments, certainly beautiful persons and places, and a truly to die for dog.

Love, loyalty, deception, business all come into this 57-minute feature. Certainly makes you think and certainly has some points better than others - but if you like Delon, you won't want to miss this.

A marvellous movie, very deep, poetic and political, really modern!

If you love them probably you will watch, it's not very long, only one hour. But, it's boring to death, you will need a lot of coffee to resist until the end. There is no story, just the pretext to watch them. And, you know what, they are just beautiful, they were not great actors. The love story between Delon and his dog it's a story for little babies. Rex the dog plays very well the role of dog.