L'affaire Dominici

First, it is very strange that this outstanding film was directed by a so bland director, who was a war in Indochina war reporter, before becoming a director without any personal style, but with some good films such as CHARLIE BRAVO, an awesome war film better for me than LA 317 ème SECTION and L'ARDOISE, a taut and gritty crime movie. And just after made his best film l'AFFAIRE DOMINICI, he will become a porn junk movies director. It is very hard to believe; the transition between one of Jean Gabin's best performances and porn movies.... Some French directors will do the same Jose Benazéraf, Jean Claude Roy..;But them, unlike Claude Bernard Aubert, did not direct the greatest French actor just before.... And here, once more after LA HORSE, Jean Gabin plays a farmer fighting against institutions. In real life Gabin was a farmer, besides being an actor: a profession he disliked and which he used only to finance his farm, horses and lands.

It is hard to believe that Madame la Guillotine claimed her first victim in 1792 and was still going strong in 1977!

Opponents of capital punishment have always maintained that it is ineffective as a deterrent and that there have been too many 'miscarriages of justice'.

It is a highly emotive debate but it is certain that had not Gaston Dominici had his death sentence quashed and been released from prison on grounds of ill health then he too would have joined the list of the victims of blind justice.

The compromises of film dictate that so many details of the case have been omitted here but all things considered it is still pretty effective. Filmed on location where the events took place it contains some strong performances and the trial scene is excellently handled.

Police are baffled by the apparently motiveless murder of an English scientist, his wife and ten year old daughter near their car in the sleepy French town of Lurs. Disgusted by the crime, especially after seeing the corpse of the girl, Commissaire Sebeille, very well played by Paul Crauchet, makes it his mission to find the murderer(or murderers). Eventually, almost out of desperation, Sebeille seizes upon circumstantial and contradictory evidence that points towards Gaston Dominici, the patriarch of the farm close to the murder scene, a great performance by Jean Gabin in which he instils a lifetime's experience in front of the camera. Domenici does not do himself any favours at the trial, the presiding judge is biased and despite one of his sons admitting perjury, the jury's verdict is predictable.

There have been some very good French films through the years that show the deeply unpleasant undercurrents of rural life notably Becker's 'Goupi Mains Rouges' and although this film is not in the same league, none of the protagonists in this emerge smelling of roses.

Mention must be made of Daniel Ivernel as the judge and Evi Maltagliati as the almost wordless but highy expressive Madame Dominici. As Domenici's simple-minded nephew we have the charismatic Gérard Depardieu; moving up the ranks and just a year away from the first of his collaborations with Bertrand Blier.

The theme of a faulty judicial system is ideally suited to André Cayatte but here we have Claude-Bernard Aubert. He was unable to build on this and went on to direct porn films under the name Burt Tranbaree.

It is left to the television film of 2003 to give a fuller account and advance the theory that the killing was committed by the KGB. There is also a tantalising documentary from 1955 begun by Orson Welles and typically, unfinished.

It is highly unlikely that we will ever know who slaughtered the family Drummond. This case is yet another grim reminder of Byron's observation: "Truth is stranger than fiction."

A crime. a case. a young Depardieu. an old Gabin. the tension. and the impecable story about family, tradition, guilt and justice. a film about the way to explore a case , having the right story, the best cast. and, sure, a huge Jean Gabin in a role of his last years. a film who propose questions. in the manner to convince. to change rules. to open new perspectives. one of works presenting the clear image of a world defining, in many aspects, us, people from old societies, with strong rules and deep vulnerabilities, near an English family under sky , on a road.

Well cast, acted and even the wandering photography is OK. The point of view is tumbled and tossed for a reason because there couldn't be one. One moment the viewer is judge and jury; the next, a bewildered tourist; the next, a time traveler experiencing the Europe not shown in the travel brochures. (The review before this is very good at shortly defining this brief case of that.) It's worth seeing if you do your homework first: IT WAS World NEWS. The movie plays with that fact and it would have been much more entertaining had it risked (real risks) telling the greater story of espionage (the CIA was embarrassed by the media of that time linking it to the murders) a whiff of English nobility again horribly compromised--from the previous espionage-d Profumo Scandal; and The Cold War hanging like a cloud over the Atlantic--all the way to Hollywood. The 4 admitted producers represent that clouded reality. Their mere presence put real, enforced limits on a movie that deserved much better. That it was made at all during that time with gifted actors is perhaps telling us much, much more. Drink lots of cognac after your research and watch it unfold like an over edited surveillance tape. Well worth the effort. Good luck with that.

In France,in the first half of the seventies,the rural thriller was trendy ,hip.There was " La Veuve Couderc" "La Horse" (featuring Gabin,which ,though it is pure fiction,looks like "l'Affaire Dominici") "Les Granges Brûlées" ...Their granddaddy was Becker's unsurpassed classic "Goupi Mains Rouges" (1943) which already depicted the clannishness of some people of the rural society.

"L'Affaire Dominici" is a different matter ,for it is based on true facts.Three English tourists (a lord's family) are murdered on a country road .The suspects are the Dominici family ,whose farm was near the tragedy,and whose patriarch (Gabin) shows himself inflexible.

The Dominici family seems to come from another world,from another time.They always contradict themselves (the audience does not know if they protect themselves or if they wash their dirty linen in public).Gabin gives an impressive disturbing performance ,but Victor Lanoux is equally good as his son.There's also a young Gerard Depardieu as a half-wit nephew who's got three or four lines to say.

The Dominici affair remains a mystery.But there are other strange things that do not even concern them: why for instance,do those wealthy tourists have to sleep by the roadside?

Directing is average made-for-TV quality but the whole cast makes the movie a minor winner.