 |
| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Only three years after his debut film France, Inc. from
1973, French director Alain Corneau established himself with his loose
reinterpretation of Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock with Police
Python 357 as a new French purveyor of the crime subgenre. Spoken of the same breath as Jean-Pierre
Melville, Don Siegel and even the Eurocrime movement of the poliziotteschi,
Corneau forged ahead three years later with Série Noire which further
blurred the lines of good versus evil in the criminal character study
film. Last but not least was his scope
widescreen 1981 crime thriller Choice of Arms featuring a terrifyingly
superb Gerard Depardieu as well as an unexpected turn from Catherine
Denueve. With all three films curated
and restored by Studio Canal and released on blu-ray for the first time in the
United Kingdom and United States by Radiance Films in the aptly named Hardboiled:
Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau boxed set, let us dive headfirst into
ostensibly three of the finest mid-70s/early-80s French crime thrillers the
subgenre has to offer.
Beginning with Police Python 357 also dubbed The
Case Against Ferro in some areas, the film co-written for the screen by
Corneau and Daniel Boulanger stars Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear) as a
cop named Inspector Ferrot who begins an affair with a young photographer named
Sylvia (Stefania Sandrelli) who is also secretly engaged in another affair with
Commissioner Ganay (Francois Perier).
When she threatens to engulf the Commissioner in a scandal involving his
extramarital affairs with her, he murders her and manages to pin the crime on
Inspector Ferrot. Very quickly, the beleaguered
cop is on the run while having to take the law into his own hands for
survival. Considerably darker and even
more morally complex than anything in the John Farrow 1948 classic The Big
Clock, the film out of the gate makes itself known as a doomer, from Platoon
composer Georges Delerue’s chorus of despairing howls to The Toy cinematographer
Etienne Becker’s moody 1.66:1 cinematography.
Performances across the board are excellent with all three turning in roles
full of vulnerabilities and a sense of primal survival of the fittest.
Drifting even further into morally nebulous territory is
Corneau’s 1979 adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel A Hell of a Woman with
the Patrick Dewaere starring downward spiral Série Noire, written for
the screen by Thompson, Corneau and Georges Perec. In the film we are welcomed to the ‘banlieues’
or in other words a negative context for impoverished sections of French
society where our intoxicated door-to-door salesman Franck Poupart (Patrick
Dewaere) saunters from spot to spot usually in a depressed stupor occasionally
crossing paths with his despondent wife.
Owing money right and left including to his boss who suspects he’s been
cheating him out of funds for some time, he becomes entangled with an underage
girl named Mona (Marie Trintignant) whom he hastily tries ala Travis Bickle to
rescue from a life of prostitution.
However soon his situation grows more out of control and increasingly
murderous. Tinged with ennui and
solitude with an unpredictable leading man, the film is lensed in moody soft
lighting with heavy grain levels by Pierre-William Glenn with original music by
Gerard Lenorman. Notable for the brief
presence of Hell’s Angels bikers in one scene and navigated by a brilliant
Patrick Dewaere and daring scenes of nudity by Marie Trintignant, Série Noire
is something of a French neo-noirish Hellscape that only worsens with the
film’s brisk running time.
Third in the loosely defined crime trilogy by Alain Corneau
and debatably the best of the three is the 1981 scope-widescreen crime epic Choice
of Arms. Co-written by Michel
Grisolia, the film reunites Corneau with his favorite leading man Yves Montand
and also brings aboard the electric screen talents of both Catherine Deneuve
and Gerard Depardieu in some of their best performances yet. In this unlikely crime saga, Noel Durieux (Montand)
is an ex-gangster now living a tranquil life in his swanky estate grounds with
his wife Nicole (Deneuve) when two escaped criminals involved in a police
shooting arrive at his doorstep, former accomplish Serge and a young psychotic
hitman named Mickey (an unhinged and terrifying Depardieu). When Serge dies, Mickey seems to go on a
sociopathic warpath until unexpected developments including an estranged
daughter come into the picture, further complicating what we think we know
about this trio of characters.
Again shot by Pierre-William Glenn only this time in scope
2.35:1 panoramic widescreen and a powerful, evocative score by Philippe Sarde, Choice
of Arms is unquestionably the stone-cold masterpiece of this film set by
Radiance. Impeccably crafted and wholly
compelling from start to finish, Choice of Arms is a bit like a flower
that just keeps blooming and blooming, revealing more intricacies and layers
that forever alter our perceptions of the events unfolding. Running over two hours but never feeling
anything but taut and urgent, the film is largely navigated by a spectacular
performance from Gerard Depardieu who runs the full gamut of physically
imposing and threatening to vulnerable and a soft soul with relatable needs and
yearning. A shape shifting thriller that
keeps changing throughout the course of the movie, Choice of Arms is a
triumph of the French crime thriller and is easily the strongest film offered
in the set.
Of course the set would not be complete without Radiance
Films’ plentiful extras, from the collectible booklet of essays to the archival
interviews with the cast and crew on all three films. There’s reversible sleeve art for all three
films housed in a three-disc amaray case.
The set itself is housed in a hard box which is nice for displaying on
shelves and as always Radiance Films include the OBI spine on the left side of
the box akin to how Japanese vinyls and laserdiscs tended to be issued. All three films in the set are stellar examples
of the crime subgenre but it goes without saying Choice of Arms is the
undisputed home run of this illustrious and rich home video package. Another knock out of the park from Radiance
Film who continue to compete for the top spot of my favorite boutique releasing
labels.
--Andrew Kotwicki
