Coup de torchon

Looking at the slew of negative comments that this movie has racked up I can't help wondering what drew these people to it in the first place. What drew ME were the names attached to it, Tavernier, one of THE great contemporary French directors, Phillipe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert, two all-time GREAT French actors. Okay, everyone has the occasional off day but when you get to THIS level of writing, acting, directing, even the bad ones eclipse by a country mile the BEST of such joke talents as Godard and Tarentino and this particular entry is far from bad if anybody asks you. So I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that all these whingers must have wandered into the movie theater thinking they were going to see Gidget Goes Hawaian or How To Stuff A Wild Bikini in which case it is easy to understand their misgivings. For the record this is an excellent example of The Biter Bit aka The Worm Turns and all the ingredients are out of the right bottle and come together in a heady and satisfying brew. 8/10

To say that novelist Jim Thompson has been badly served by American directors would be something of an understatment as the only worthwhile version to emerge from Hollywoodland, 'The Grifters', is directed by Englishman Stephen Frears. Apart from that, one has to look to France for the two adaptations that capture Thompson's spirit and do him justice, namely 'Série Noire' of Alain Corneau, based upon 'A hell of a Woman' and 'Coup de Torchon', adapted by director Betrand Tavernier and legendary screenwriter Jean Aurenche from 'Pop 1280' with the setting transposed from Texas to Senegal.

The change of location to French West Africa is inspired as it suits perfectly Thompson's bleak view of the human condition with its lazy, morally vacuous, corrupt colonial officials and assorted low lifes. The linchpin of the film is the transformation of complacent police chief Cordelier from buffoon to judge, jury and executioner. He is so cleverly played by Tavernier's favourite actor, the superlative Philippe Noiret, that one can neither condone nor condemn him nor dismiss him as a lunatic. Audiences through the years have shown their admiration for vigilantes but for this viewer at any rate, any regard for Cordelier's actions are soon diminished.

Noiret's superb performance is complemented by those of Isabelle 'super' Huppert as his horny-as-hell mistress, Stéphane Audran as his unfaithful wife, Guy Marchand as his bigoted superior and the always good value Jean Pierre Marielle again showing his versatility by playing two brothers. Irene Skobline plays the schoolteacher whose comparative innocence attracts Cordelier and it is a great pity that her film career did not progress any further.

The cruelty and cynicism of the piece is balanced by the visual elegance one has come to expect from this director, whilst the production design is by Alexandre Trauner and the sun-drenched cinematography by Pierre William Glenn who also shot the aforementioned 'Série Noire'. Although the steadicam has been over used in recent years it is here extremely effective.

Throughout the 1970's Tavernier had come to be regarded as a 'humanist' director so this came as something of a surprise. It proved a commercial but not a critical success. It is an ambiguous, unsettling, fascinating film and now that nations have been forced to come to terms with their colonial past, it is more relevant than ever.

There is something repulsive in this noirish tale of amoral behavior and violence among French colonists in an African country in the late 1930s. Doltish Lucien is a sheriff who is (sometimes literally) kicked around by the people in his life - until he somewhat randomly decides to start offing those who impede his progress. And why does he walk around looking more like a tourist than an officer of the law? His murderous behavior becomes increasingly horrifying, until the story surprisingly turns somewhat philosophical towards the end. There are some fine performances and location filming. This is no classic, but it is worth a look. Based on a Jim Thompson novel.

Jim Thompson meets Joseph Conrad in a small, dusty town in Senegal. The writing is excellent throughout, delving into themes that most films would never have the guts to handle. Brutal, darkly humorous and brilliantly done. A great, great film noir. Not a movie for those easily offended (though one they should probably see and learn from.)

Bertrand Tavernier once again shows why he's one of his country's most challenging directors with this disturbing dark comedy, loosely adapted from a Jim Thompson novel ('POP 1280') but relocated to French Equatorial Africa just before World War II. The story follows a lazy, ineffective police chief in a dusty colonial city, who begins to manipulate his tormentors in much the same way they earlier abused him, discovering along the way the omnipotence of his position and the immunity provided by his reputation as an incompetent buffoon. After suffering the indignities of a natural born doormat all his life, he strikes back with a vengeance, slowly descending into a rational madness that commands sympathy while simultaneously provoking moral outrage (at one point he callously murders the innocent native servant who mistakenly witnessed on of his killings). Tavernier builds the tension from his characters rather than from the plot, using touches of unsettling black humor to further blur the line dividing comedy and tragedy.