O Paxá

I think it an error to judge this film on plot alone - the story is the skeleton of a brightly stylized action fantasy which surely owes much to the garish Japanese crime films of the mid '60s. The police offices are not the grimy smoke-stained green-painted reality of battered wood desks and clattering file cabinets, but more nearly resemble the lair of the master-criminal with pivoting wall maps, poster-sized mug shots, and moving silhouettes cast on frosted glass walls. Police activity is a montage of blinking lights, fingers pressing buttons, walls of TV screens, streams of punched tape, and they thunder around the city in streamlined sports cars, not blocky grayish sedans. The inevitable night club is half surrealism, half agitprop performance, through which the stolid and always immaculate protagonist floats like an iceberg. The criminals drag their elaborate apparatus from the trunk of a huge sculptured American car and shoot gouts of flame and bazooka rockets in an eternally gray French winter, setting the snow itself on fire. They pour out of bright yellow mail trucks and blast machine guns at an army of police through obscuring clouds of drifting smoke. Le Pacha deserves to be viewed with fresh eyes because every scene and setting is stimulating and rewarding.

The movie is an unanticipated gem! I was expecting something of a hybrid between A. Delon's "Un Flic" and "Le Samouraï", but this one is fast paced and stylish. I enjoyed the inserts with "hippies" dancing and The Serge cameo, both lending some documentary feel to the movie. It is also one for a fan of coolest mid-century period, with characters carved out of the 40ies b&w gangster movies. Gabin's character is funny, policemen are efficient and gangsters dull-n-dumb: feels good. Music is an added bonus, especially if you pay attention to the words of the song that Serge sings: nice refrain to the plot. In short, great contemporary mix, very entertaining and a bit touching.

This was another Jean Gabin vehicle which often turned up on Italian TV; having decided to check it out, I'm glad I did because it's a pretty good policier!

Despite his advancing age, the star is wholly believable as the dogged Police Commissioner (the "Pacha" of the title) - out to avenge his childhood, albeit shady, friend - who's also something of an amiable curmudgeon. The film features an elaborate daylight robbery sequence - after which one member of the gang eliminates all his associates in order to keep the loot for himself (one of them is pushed inside his car onto thin ice which naturally breaks and engulfs him)! - and is fast-paced, and short, enough to never overstay its welcome. Besides, it's given a tremendous boost by a modern percussion-heavy score by celebrated performer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg (who even appears as himself during a recording session of the tune heard over the opening credits!).

There's also a hilarious scene in which the old-fashioned Gabin visits a hippie club - in search of a girl (Dany Carrel of MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN [1960]) who, apart from being a fling of Gabin's deceased colleague, is a link to the robbery mentioned above since she's the sister of one of the culprits (now also dead). Therefore, she and Gabin conspire to trap the man responsible for both deeds and the film ends with an indiscriminate shoot-out - punctuated by an ominous organ drone - in an abandoned warehouse (which curiously anticipates the climax of THE FRENCH CONNECTION [1971]!).

To put it mildy ,the screenplay is trite,as old as the hills : a cop wants to do away with a mobster who reigns over the underworld and is responsible for so many deaths it's impossible to count them all.

The interest lies elsewhere ,and there is considerable appeal for fans of the French sixties::first of all Lautner's lines are a delight,one of them (about putting the stupid b.........into orbit ) has become a classic of sorts ; the cast is splendid : Gabin is true to form , André Pousse is given for once a chance to shine as the straight-face ruthless criminal who want to have his cake and eat it;Dany Carrel is simply gorgeous as the naive girl used as a lure......Not only Serge Gainsbourg wrote the soundtrack (essentially based on drums)but the viewer attends a little bit of one of his recording sessions: the best rock/pop songwriter France has ever known smokes when he's singing! Two of his songs are included : the first one ("requiem pour un c......")provides a fitting epitaph for Gabin's friend ;as it it were not enough , it's followed by the de rigueur homage by the well-meaning people who praise a man of honor, a resistant fighter , a great patriot,etc. Gabin ,although part of the establishment , mumbles words that show another side of the departed:then begins a flashback .

There's a darker side to "le pacha" ; both the superintendent ("Le Pacha" ) and his friend were about to retire and for the former it's a journey through the past,("It's a seedy part of the town" says a cop; "thank you, Gabin replies ,I was born and raised around here")

Jean Gabin certainly one the most expressive French actor mostly as Chief of Police whom he embodies perfectly by his coldness and customary sarcasm, he plays the Commissioner Joss Le Pacha about to retirement, but when one of his closest childhood friend now an old Inspector Gouvion (Robert Dalban) was an easy prey on a Robbery, he has been blamed to have facilitate the whole thing, afterwards he is found dead, at first glance he'd allegedly committed suicide, Joss otherwise disagreed of such mindset, thus Joss is willing to prove despite Gouvion was slow and selfish he wasn't engaged in the robbery.

Soon the cunning Commissioner Joss already gathered many clues that seem suggesting straightway into the rough felonious self-called Quinquin (André Pousse), meanwhile he digs all around he meets a Gouvion's lover, the young and beauty Nathalie Villar (Dany Carrel) which to afford Nathalie's life style Gouvion was making blind eye here and there for small offences, a bit bruised about the unforeseen Joss draw up a bold plan to get arrest Quinquin.

The highlight of the movie quite sure are the phasing-out period on late sixties between the new wave of sexual liberalism attached into hippie phenomenon that grabbed the young generation, it's displeased deeply the old fashionable Commissioner that reproves such obnoxious odd behavior, moreover it was put on the screenplay trying display the conflict of two opposite ages, the colorful psychedelic ongoing at Europe against the old customs, so violent and exotic polar picture, directed by Georges Lautner, scored by a fine soundtrack for this period of time only.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.