Les voleurs

Please, don't get misunderstood by the title: Thieves. OK, it is question of thieves, and also of a cop, but strangely despite those "ingredients", the way this movie is "cooked", it is not a crime drama. But a drama and characters study, yes, definitely. The making is very accurate, made with the greatest care, with a very complex story telling. Which supposed a very complicated editing game. It is not a crime film with gunfights, car chases; very unique indeed in the movie history. There are films with cops without being crime films, for instance GARDE A VUE or POLICE, but with cops and robbers without being a crime film.... Not my stuff, but still a good film.

I've watched this movie less as a coherent whole and more as an interrupted series of brilliant little moments. There is the scene where Catherine Deneuve is riding in the car explaining the philosophical nature of money. It didn't belong, but it was a very nice scene. There is the scene where Daniel Auteuil and Laurence Cote chat over his breakfast in a hotel and he sees her laugh for the first time. Nicely set up. Then there is the scene where Deneuve and Auteuil go to the Opera. The plot is muddled, but the actors provide fascinating little moments. Props to Techine for incredible direction with attention to character insight.

"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)

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.