Coup de torchon

To say that novelist Jim Thompson has been badly served by American directors would be something of an understatment as the only worthwhile version to emerge from Hollywoodland, 'The Grifters', is directed by Englishman Stephen Frears. Apart from that, one has to look to France for the two adaptations that capture Thompson's spirit and do him justice, namely 'Série Noire' of Alain Corneau, based upon 'A hell of a Woman' and 'Coup de Torchon', adapted by director Betrand Tavernier and legendary screenwriter Jean Aurenche from 'Pop 1280' with the setting transposed from Texas to Senegal.

The change of location to French West Africa is inspired as it suits perfectly Thompson's bleak view of the human condition with its lazy, morally vacuous, corrupt colonial officials and assorted low lifes. The linchpin of the film is the transformation of complacent police chief Cordelier from buffoon to judge, jury and executioner. He is so cleverly played by Tavernier's favourite actor, the superlative Philippe Noiret, that one can neither condone nor condemn him nor dismiss him as a lunatic. Audiences through the years have shown their admiration for vigilantes but for this viewer at any rate, any regard for Cordelier's actions are soon diminished.

Noiret's superb performance is complemented by those of Isabelle 'super' Huppert as his horny-as-hell mistress, Stéphane Audran as his unfaithful wife, Guy Marchand as his bigoted superior and the always good value Jean Pierre Marielle again showing his versatility by playing two brothers. Irene Skobline plays the schoolteacher whose comparative innocence attracts Cordelier and it is a great pity that her film career did not progress any further.

The cruelty and cynicism of the piece is balanced by the visual elegance one has come to expect from this director, whilst the production design is by Alexandre Trauner and the sun-drenched cinematography by Pierre William Glenn who also shot the aforementioned 'Série Noire'. Although the steadicam has been over used in recent years it is here extremely effective.

Throughout the 1970's Tavernier had come to be regarded as a 'humanist' director so this came as something of a surprise. It proved a commercial but not a critical success. It is an ambiguous, unsettling, fascinating film and now that nations have been forced to come to terms with their colonial past, it is more relevant than ever.

Jim Thompson meets Joseph Conrad in a small, dusty town in Senegal. The writing is excellent throughout, delving into themes that most films would never have the guts to handle. Brutal, darkly humorous and brilliantly done. A great, great film noir. Not a movie for those easily offended (though one they should probably see and learn from.)

Looking at the slew of negative comments that this movie has racked up I can't help wondering what drew these people to it in the first place. What drew ME were the names attached to it, Tavernier, one of THE great contemporary French directors, Phillipe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert, two all-time GREAT French actors. Okay, everyone has the occasional off day but when you get to THIS level of writing, acting, directing, even the bad ones eclipse by a country mile the BEST of such joke talents as Godard and Tarentino and this particular entry is far from bad if anybody asks you. So I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that all these whingers must have wandered into the movie theater thinking they were going to see Gidget Goes Hawaian or How To Stuff A Wild Bikini in which case it is easy to understand their misgivings. For the record this is an excellent example of The Biter Bit aka The Worm Turns and all the ingredients are out of the right bottle and come together in a heady and satisfying brew. 8/10

Lucien Cordier is not like most cops. He's a main chief in a West African village where white people are the minority though, in 1938, are as racist and sexist as can be. He's also not a very good cop, as he barely ever arrests anyone and his authority can be challenged pretty quickly, even by two scummy pimps. He's like the pushover kid in a playground who may be a nice guy, but he's also not quite strong enough to actually attain the authority needed to stand up against the bullies. That is until Lucien decides to fight back, in a manner that is at a calm extreme; an oxymoron, perhaps, but watching Lucien is an oxymoron in human form, but a fascinating one. He'll kill someone, anyone, he thinks of as an enemy to him, shooting a man in the back, the pimps, or even the man who helps him dig a grave. He calmly explains some of the whys, but he never goes too ballistic. Lucien is a man of principles, but to say exactly what or why is a mystery.

This is what makes Coup de tochon, or Clean Slate, based on the Jim Thompson novel Pop 1280 (mentioned in passing as Pop. 1275 for no good reason at one point in the film), is about this man who is warm, lustful, proud, and perhaps a not entirely bright but not stupid either. And as played by Philippe Noiret he makes this film compulsively watchable. The supporting cast, such as Isabelle Hupert and Jean-Pierre Marielle, don't fare too badly either, but it's Noiret that elevates this to something more than director Bertrand Tavernier could have expected. He gives a performance that is intense without ever being over the top, and thoughtful while seemingly aloof in some points. He makes Lucien a guy we might like to know or talk to for a little while, until we see the veneer peel away, a fragile man who has been pushed around by his bosses and his wife (Stephan Audran) and in a position with such little power that the only way to bust loose is senseless killing. As he says, "Would a man with these eyes be a killer?"

Tavernier's direction is lax and smooth, jagged with some documentary style and realism (it was shot all on location, and it looks it always), but there's also a distance I felt to many of the scenes, a deliberate attempt to strip down film-noir elements to light absurdism mixed with sardonic tragedy. There are some great moments, don't get me wrong: the scene with the film screened for the village people at night that gets ruined by a windstorm as the audio keeps playing on with the film cut off and people scrambling for cover; the first killing scene of the pimps where Lucien becomes a larger threat with every passing second leading up to a predictable but still shocking climax; an ending, which I won't mention here.

It has such moments, but I wasn't very moved by Coup de torchon throughout, and it's not directed with the surest hand. And yet, I have to give it to Philippe Noiret: in any other film noir he'd be out of place, and yet here, he's perfect.

Bertrand Tavernier once again shows why he's one of his country's most challenging directors with this disturbing dark comedy, loosely adapted from a Jim Thompson novel ('POP 1280') but relocated to French Equatorial Africa just before World War II. The story follows a lazy, ineffective police chief in a dusty colonial city, who begins to manipulate his tormentors in much the same way they earlier abused him, discovering along the way the omnipotence of his position and the immunity provided by his reputation as an incompetent buffoon. After suffering the indignities of a natural born doormat all his life, he strikes back with a vengeance, slowly descending into a rational madness that commands sympathy while simultaneously provoking moral outrage (at one point he callously murders the innocent native servant who mistakenly witnessed on of his killings). Tavernier builds the tension from his characters rather than from the plot, using touches of unsettling black humor to further blur the line dividing comedy and tragedy.