The Seznec affair is one of the biggest judicial affairs that France has ever known. Yves Boisset's television movie is based on a story that really happened in 1923. It deals with a man, Guillaume Seznec who leads a wealthy existence. But one day, his life's turning upside down when he's under arrest. Indeed, he's suspected to have killed Pierre Quemeneur, a rich man and one of his best friends. But the problem is that Quemeneur's body has disappeared and the police's got very few clues...
Although, Boisset's work stands as a modest television movie, it deserves to be watched, especially if you are mesmerized by this Seznec's affair that caused so much sensation in France and it divided the public opinion. As for the director, well we can say that Boisset feels compassion and pity for his main character and he tends to despise the representatives of justice: policemen and judges during the trial because these last ones think he's guilty about Quemeneur's disappearance. His work is also a denunciation of injustice and miscarriage of justice.
With all these remarks, you can qualify Boisset's film as demagogic because Boisset agrees with the public opinion that regards the Seznec Affair as the symbol of miscarriage of justice. But by this way, he's just giving us his opinion and attempts to relate as precisely as possible the events related in Denis Langlois's book about the Seznec affair. Moreover, Seznec's character is very well built by Christophe Malavoy.
An honest and by moments touching television movie.
