Os Ladrões

A love triangle. A crime story. A drama about fraternal conflict. All could make fine stories on their own, but in this film they're thrown together, and then given a philosophical spin (appropriate, since one of the characters is a philosophy professor). It's also more character-driven than you'd expect from this type of story; we are taken into the character's motivation, so we understand their actions, rather than have them driven by plot machinations. And it's done like a novel, flashing back and forth, so actions unfold gradually to reveal another layer. Unfortunately, as, it seems, with many films from France, the story doesn't so much end as stop. This may be appropriate with something like, say, UN COEUR EN HIVER, but it left me feeling a little cheated here. Still, this is worthwhile viewing.

Of the actors, the only ones which are immediately familiar to me are Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve. Auteuil is playing someone who has trouble expressing himself, a character he seems to specialize him, based on what I've seen of his films (JEAN DE FLORETTE/MANON OF THE SPRING and UN COEUR EN HIVER), and he does another fine job here. I've never been a fan of Deneuve; I usually find her too inexpressive and icy. Here, however, she plays a character you usually don't find in crime films; an older woman having an affair with someone younger (here, a woman) who isn't fading or scheming. She makes Marie, who at first seems didactic, fully human.

Perhaps the subtitles failed to do justice to the movie, but the visual construction of Les Voleurs crosses all boundaries. The complexities of the plot can be confusing; however, the visual imagery used in the film helps reinforce the characteristics of each relationship the film studies. All in all, a brilliant film to watch if you feel up to reading the subtitles.

"Thieves" has Techine at the helm with Deneuve and Auetuil in the spotlight and critical plaudits aplenty. However, my reaction at the end of the two hour flick was "Yeah, so???". Telling of the intertwined lives of a cop and his brother and a girl and her lover and a handful of other people, this character driven flick wanders to and fro interminably, jumping around in time, examining the details of their fatalistic and pragmatic lives as they fuss and stew and brood over the this and that of their existence. Given subtitles and a soup thin story with no moral, no message, no hero, no villain, just character study heaped upon character study and no character that's even likeable, "Thieves" will not have much appeal for the masses. Recommended for French speakers or French film buffs only. (B)

This film has a complex, multi-layered structure that grabs your interest...but not much substance underneath. There's no real mystery to the plot, and no real revelations about "human nature" either. Well-acted all around - including a little boy who is wise way beyond his years. (**)

Everyone is a thief in this film; don't pay for the goods emotional or physical. A psychological film on the need to take love where we can, things where we can because money is in the main excrement in the world excreted from one person to another. Deneuve sums the need for money in a car scene which is quite brilliant as she is talking to a thief who takes. This is our world and we are all involved in theft in one way or another, as deep down it is a love/ hatred towards sexual obsessions and objects, to have, then pass them on. As one reviewer said it is not a ' family ' film, and the acting is up to Techine's high standard. The consequences of crime reminded me of French crime films of the 1950's ( Gabin etc ) and the studies of each character interesting to watch. The only scene that did not convince was Deneuve having her first Lesbian relationship. She acted it well, but the kiss ( a bit blurred or was it my eyesight ) was total fake. I give it an 8 because for once in his films I found it too clever and too contrived. Snow features quite a lot; coldness of the heart, the cold thrill of stealing and the human heart too emotionally divided. Look closely at the scene where Deneuve collapses, and while she is unconscious Auteuil steals her face by taking a photo of her.