Un Flic (1972)

I love this movie so much

Truly Dreadful Film

Sadly Over-hyped

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

For a police thriller, this movie chose the strange angles of architecture and fashion from which to tell the story. Throughout, the film actively tries to showcase a new, modern France. In the weird opening sequence, we see a sea-side resort with an endless row of brand-new apartment blocks, totally void of human presence in a foul winter-weather. Strangely, from afar, a shop in one of the buildings seem open. Because of the abundant lighting, we might be tempted to think it's a bar, but it's a bank (about to be robbed). The police headquarters is another modern building given lots of camera-attention by Melville, who seems to juxtapose this 'new' France to the old; the contrasts with scenes of the 'old Paris' such as the closing scenes at the Arc de Triomphe are great.The male characters seem to spend an inordinate amount of time to groom their looks. Both Alain Delon and the excellent bad guy Richard Crenna (Simon) are given lengthy shots showing them combing their hair. They parade around in flawless suits, slick ties, lush bathrobes, gold cuff links. These are sharp dressed men, vain and self-obsessed, misogynist and gay-bashing. The gorgeous can-can girls are there (like in so many other Melville movies) but no-one seems to notice them. Delon manipulates a beautiful transvestite into thinking he might fall for her charms, only to beat her up when she fails to deliver on a promise.Catherine Deneuve on the other hand seems less well served, sartorially speaking; I was not very impressed with her acting performance in this film, but perhaps my judgment is influenced by the ugly earrings she wears throughout. The closing titles highlight that the black dress worn by 'Mademoiselle Deneuve' was by Yves Saint Laurent. I don't know why this was pointed out, since the dress is hideous. Deneuve's finest moment was when she plays an angel of death, wearing a haute couture caricature of the nurse uniform. Quentin Tarantino must have been directly inspired by this to create Daryl Hannah's nurse look when she is set to murder Uma Thurman at the start of Kill Bill vol 1.All in all, the plot was not that interesting, but since the male actors were all in terrific form it was a very pleasurable movie to watch.

Of Jean-Pierre Melville's earlier masterpiece Le Samouri, Roger Ebert described it as "nothing absolutely original... except for the handling of the material." This is certainly true of nearly all of Melville's films, who was fascinated with American crime dramas and noirs, right down to the very essence of the details. His protagonists (or antagonists) of sorts frequently dress as Bogart or other Hollywood lead men with their fedora hats, khaki trench coats complete with smoldering looks and hard-boiled attitudes. Much like Le Cercle Rouge and Bob le Flambeur, Melville obsesses over the details of his characters, far more interested in those than their overall motivations or actions. Indeed, frequently, Melville douses us with very long sequences (in Le Cercle Rouge it is almost 30 minutes) of dialogue-free situations that crank up the tension of the film simply by indulging us with every movement these characters make. Often it is depicting a crime of sorts, such as a jewelery store or bank robbery, which only heightens our interest in what is going to happen next. Because Melville was much more concerned with tension than action, the payoffs of these scenes often feels deflated and a let-down, most notably because American audiences are so used these days to being pummeled with all action and little to no tensional buildup that we sit there waiting for the action that never comes. This is exactly what Melville desires. Overall, this is perhaps the most ambitious of Melville's films and, unfortunately, his last. The lead actors are quite good, especially American star Richard Crenna and French legend of cool Alain Delon. Catherine Deneuve also makes a small appearance, although the film could have benefited greatly had she been used more extensively. Still, Melville is able to wow us simply with his crisp editing, sharp and focused direction and the wonderful cold existential characters we come to expect from his work. Nowadays, Melville is beginning to be recognized further as one of the great French directors and a direct forefront of the French New Wave. Even without that great distinction, he still is an author that needs to be remembered and revisited.

Being Melville my favorite director ever and this his final film, what could I say .I was speechless when I first saw it years ago and even today after several views it still amazes me. Doubtless this was a great ending to his outstanding career, the man who redefined the film noir himself and whose films ,at least half a dozen of them, should be placed among the greatest pieces of film noir ever filmed could not do wrong in his Swang song .And he didn't do wrong indeed, probably it ain't as good as Le Doulous , LeSamurai , Bom Le Flambeur a, Circle Rouge and so on but it comes closer , which by any means does mean that this movie deserves less than a 10 . Initial scene , when the gang arrive to the bank they have planned to rob under the pouring rain , is so beautifully filmed that has become one of my favorite moments in his career.Melville came back once again to his traditional obsessions ( solitude , crime & betrayal, revenge ) and placed them into an amazing heist movie , as a way to explore the human nature.Once again Delon nailed it as the solitary cop and is the prefect vehicle to put face to all these themes. His performance is so chilled out and so classy , in the vein of the silent Jeff Costello , that this is another classic display of acting , no matter whether he plays a thief or a cop you always wanted him to win.You can predict much of the themes and situations you can face here if you've seen Melville's previous films , but nonetheless this doesnñt make them any lessexciting . Plot is pretty basic ,stripped to the very necessary, but what makes the movie are its silences and its ambiances ,totally filled up with hopelessness and despair . Don'texpect much talk here , Melville , unlike Tarantino, can pass on the message through without needing thousands of senseless speeches . In the end whether Delon will catch Crenna didn't seem to matter much, at that point you have come to know and love the characters as they are and how this will end up becomes secundary.

This is a film so good, in how it understands the minutiae of film, the mechanics as it were, and done with so much straight-forward conviction that it amazes deeply.It is lean, the form refined, like a piece of wood patiently chiseled by the ebbs.So as with previous Melville films, it is distant, surely cold, clinical business. It's about characters detached from the world they experience, content to glide through without attachments. A world as grey, dreary and sullen as the faces of the characters, one reflected in the other. The pace is minimalist and monotonous, the movie plodding along in a steady and unflagging hypnosis as if it does not progress at all. It seems to hang suspended in the middle distance, the plot laconic in what it reveals as much as the dialogue, yet it flows towards its inevitable and cold end in an unnoticeable succession of undeviating changes. A phone-call, a newspaper clipping, a man setting down to eat in a restaurant. Before you know it a man is getting shot.It's part slow erotic foreplay about cinematic crime, remember the scene with Deneuve and the gun, and part a feel that is the present moment unfettered by any including cinematic baggage. You just watch.