Tiré à part

I came across this movie completely by accident, and I was amazed by its willingness to take its time and tell an involving, intelligent story. In a sense, it is really an adaption of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, though more subtle in both its set-up and its moral considerations. An ordinary man, long ago irreparably wounded, finds himself in an extraordinary situation. He works to exact revenge in a calculated fashion; the viewer is left to question what his actions mean and how the man should be judged.

The scenario is simply amazing. Revenge is the mobile; a book as the weapon. Great also because it is the very first movie shot by Bernard RAPP (former French TV journalist).

Bernard Rapp's premier film is firmly anchored in the world of books and publishing. It's a domain the former French journalist knows like the back of his hand for he composed many books as well as he produced and host some television programs about writers.

Sadly, his wide knowledge as regards the publishing world is harmed by a total absent command of the detective genre and its main motor: suspense. From the moment onwards when Edward Lamb (Terence Stamp) looks at the telegram informing him about the death of his erstwhile lover and goes to Tunisia to find out the truth about her death, it's downhill because one can easily guess who the culprit is and the conspiracy Edwards will elaborate to avenge himself from his gifts as a forger. Real suspense isn't on appointment and the writing is on the wall for both Nicolas Fabry (Daniel Mesguich) and the film itself.

"Tiré à Part" is also sadly marred by a caricatured depiction of the characters. It was ill-advised from Rapp to have chosen Daniel Mesguich as the quarry of Lamb's manipulation. His character of unscrupulous, brash writer and his rather repulsive physic make him detestable straight away. It's also hardly palatable that he didn't feel any remorse after his murder. If it had been the case, he would have been a more ambiguous character and the film would have taken another better direction. As for Terence Stamp, he deserves better than his role. Ditto for Jean-Claude Dreyfuss who seems to be bored here.

Rapp who had English ancestors was fond of English culture but it's superfluous from him to have chosen Great-Britain than France for the backdrop of his ramshackle thriller for it doesn't bring anything useful to the fragile story. It's a shame for Rapp: had he penned a more solid story, he would have better served his topic of manipulation. A theme which will be at the core of his next effort: "une Affaire De Goût" (2000).

This is the most elaborate story of revenge that I can recall seeing. The emotional tone is very chilling; "la vengeance se mange froid" as the French say. Terence Stamp, fresh from his exertions in Priscilla, plays Edward Lamb, the owner of a small publishing house who conceives a plot against a novelist, Nicolas Fabry, who did a destructive act thirty years before that resulted in a suicide and much misery for Stamp.

The presentation of the steps of the scheme is pretty absorbing. Lamb must write another version of Fabry's new novel, under the name of a writer killed in the war, to make it appear that Fabry has committed plagiary. A good part of the satisfaction the viewer feels comes from the evocation of the multitude of plagiarized books, songs, paintings and so forth that have come to light in recent years. Bernard Rapp, the director, is a veteran of the French publishing world--he edited the Larousse Dictionary of Film. I am satisfied with Rapp's command of the book business but less so with his way with actors; Daniel Mesguich as the hapless Fabry seems rudderless in all the goings on while Terence Stamp displays no emotion at all: the part does not call for a samurai.

A good companion film would be Orson Welles's F for Fake, which has the benefit of being very funny in places. Clifford Irving was quite a guy.

Terrence Stamp - one of those very good actors who frequently and inexplicably appears in rotten movies - is terrific in this rather odd film about rape, suicide, love, revenge and literary forgery. I'm not going to go into great detail about the storyline, because in my view the person who wrote the current front-page review did as good a job as I could do. Suffice to say that for a thriller about aforementioned topics, this is a curiously dispassionate film - mostly because of Stamp's often almost emotionless performance as the vengeful ex-lover. Clearly there is a smouldering fury below the surface, but Stamp keeps it so screwed down that he seems more like a secret agent dispassionately doing his job. An odd effect, but not off-putting.

There is nothing remarkable about the other performances or the production. For a European film it plays more like an episode of Inspector Morse, minus any excess of emotion, except the increasingly desperate histrionics of Stamp's 'victim', which play off well against Stamp's stoic performance.

6.5 out of 10. Certainly worth a look, though don't expect it to change your life.