Ronda Mortal

Mortelle Randonnée is arguably one of France's best noir ever. And one of Isabelle Adjani's brightest hour. You unfortunately have to understand french to fully appreciate Michel Audiard's brilliant, darkly humorous dialogs (and especially Serreault's monologues). Claude Miller's direction is at once classy and precise (very similar to his work on L'Accompagnatrice), while Pierre Lhomme's cinematography is lush when needed, gritty when necessary (mainly during the last third). I read a few bad reviews here and there and I must add, and I know I'm not the first, that the States version, not only the recent DVD but also the TV version and the old VHS, well, has always been the truncated, 95 min. cut. Now, the movie showed everywhere else in the world runs 120 min. sharp. Think about it: it doesn't only mean that almost quarter of the movie is absent, it also means that the editing, fatally, is different, so is the rhythm, the feel, the movie altogether. I saw the DVD and frankly, while the transfer's OK, it doesn't make much of an impression, but then again, think that almost half an hour's gone. I never understood that thing with American distributors and foreign films, as if American moviegoers needed shorter, tighter movies so it won't be too much of a shock. That's ridiculous. Any moviegoer, American or whatever, that goes to the theater and buys a ticket for an Adjani/Serreault movie is obviously not looking for The Rock or Paul Walker. Well, that's what I think anyway. The rating, of course, applies to the official 120 min. version. If you have a chance to see it, don't miss it. A real gem.