Jim Thompson - À la française
Créteil.
Sort of a Paris Staten Island. One of those forgotten suburbs. Juxtapose crumbling one hundred year old dumps with empty lots rimmed by Modernist glass boxes. A suburb in flux. Franck Poupart. A door to door traveling salesman. Franck fantasizes about being a hard boiled detective. He's parked his 69 Peugeot 504 beater in a wasteland awaiting dubious development. Its thundering. He wears a trench coat. He's sort of shadow boxing with unseen crooks and dancing with femme fatales.
Franck stops outside a dilapidated house with a mansard roof, an old junked stove is sitting in the front yard, a real classy place. He grabs his sample case from the car. He spots a young lady watching from an upstairs window. An older Matron "La tante" answers the door. She tells him to scram. She don't want any. He counters by telling her he's looking for his client Mr. Tikides. He was a fuck-up handyman.
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| Créteil |
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| Peugeot 504 |
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| Franck Poupart (Patrick Dewaere) |
The woman asks Franck if Tikides owes him money. Franck lies and tells her that he made one payment too many.
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| Mona (Marie Trintignant) |
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| La tante (Jeanne Herviale) |
She tells Franck that he's at the gym. He shows her a pure synthetic tortoise shell vanity set that she can have at no obligation. She says no and is about to close the door when Franck asks if her daughter would like anything?
She tells him its her niece. He tells the woman that her niece is pretty. He jokes and tells the old woman that he'd certainly buy some of that, and that maybe they could come to some arraignment. Franck is taken back when the old woman asks him if he has any quilted dressing gowns? Franck tells her that they are their specialty. Made in Austria of pure Pyrenean wool.
The old woman tells him to wait. It starts to pour. He figures that she just gave him the brush, so he picks up his wooden sales case and heads back to his beater.
As he's passing the stove he glances back at the house and sees the young girl standing in the open doorway. He stops and goes back. Apparently he didn't see signpost he just past by that told him he had just crossed over into the Noirsville Zone.
She doesn't talk. She walks back into the house. Franck follows her to her crummy room. She turns on her radio, and drops her flimsy robe.
She is naked. She's done this before. Franck is embarrassed. He stammers out the obvious. That she dropped her robe. She says nothing. He picks up his sales case and starts to walk out. The girl throws herself at Franck. Franck pushes her back grabs her robe and puts it around her shoulders. He asks her name she replies Mona. She tells him lets get on with it.
Here is where Franck's P.I. fantasy becomes somewhat of a reality. Franck asks her if she needs help and if she's being forced into prostitution. Again she doesn't answer. He picks up the sales case and starts to walk out Mona asks him if he'll come back. Franck tells her that he will come back.
Franck closes out the deal with the old lady. She's wearing her quilted robe. It cost Franck 400 francs.
The old lady tells Franck that she needs a winter coat, and we know how she wants to pay it off. Pimping out her niece. On his way to the gym Franck is psyched up about his "case." He sings an improvised song about Mona.
Franck goes to the gym. He wants to collect money for a three piece suit bought by Mr. Tikides. He complains to Tikides manager. The manager pays off the 400 francs owed.
On his way to the office Franck calls ahead. The manager asks him if he found Tikides. Franck lies and says no, but tells the manager that he sold a quilted robe for 400 francs. When he hangs up Tikides is outside the phone booth waiting. He tells Franck that suit fell apart. Tikides starts banging his head on the booth door. Franck starts screaming at him that he's a rapist, that Mona is underage, and threatens to call the police.
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| Andreas Katsulas is Tikides |
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| Myriam Boyer is Jeanne |
Jeanne is a shrew she is pissed off about everything. And to top it off Franck wants her to make dinner. He asks her nicely. She ignores him and turns on the radio. He slaps her around and knocks her in the tub.
At his sales office he gets arrested for stealing and thrown in jail. Staplin has figured out the Franck has been skimming money from the company.
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| Bernard Blier as Staplin |
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| Arrested! |
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| Franck in jail |
Franck gets let out after spending a night in jail and heads back to the office. He is pissed off and is ready to blow his top.
At the office, just as he is about to confront Staplin, Staplin tells Franck that he can have his job back, because his wife just paid back all the money he embezzled. Frank is perplexed Jeanne paying his bills? He finds out soon after that it was Mona who squared things.
Back home at his flop, Franck sees Mona standing across the street outside his door watching his house.
When Franck asks Mona where she got the money she tells him that her aunts got ten million francs squirreled away.
Franck starts falling for Mona and hatches a wild ass plan to get the aunts money. He starts by making friends with Tikides. They get drunk together. Of course everything goes Noirsville.
Noirsville
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| The carnage |
Director Alain Corneau does a masterful job of transposing the Thompson-esue down and out milieu to France. Its a dark, dark, comedy continually spiraling downward into the abyss. Corneau deftly depicts this on screen in the last scene where after loosing everything Frank clutching Mona begins to spin around in a circle like water going down a drain to the sewer, nice touch!
"Every time Patrick Dewaere goes into one of his fantastic lies (which is just about every time he opens his mouth) I come close to busting a gut. The monologing is certainly the product of Georges Perec--I doubt Thompson was the source. Our English subtitles probably don't do it justice." (dave jenkins - SLWB)
Dewaere is fantastic. He tries to play it cool on the outside while obsessed and desperate on the inside while at the same time everything in his world is going to shit. Occasionally he gives away his frustrations tearing a room apart or smashing his head into a car hood. He is very compelling to watch. Bernard Blier as Staplin plays an equally convincing low life, a bottom feeding, slime ball working out of a dilapidated and empty storefront. He oozes that particular quality of being able to bullshit you sincerely with a smile while picking your pockets of everything you got. Its that special affinity of con artists, gypsies, and used car salesmen.
Marie Trintignant plays Mona as practically a mute. Is she stressed out? Does she have PTSD? Maybe she just doesn't give that much of a fuck about it. Whats it cost her 10 minutes at most? She is pretty nonchalant about it all. It's what she does to support her Aunt and herself.
Andreas Katsulas plays Tikides the moronic punch drunk boxer with a childlike mind. He adds or subtracts just enough in just the right places to convince you that he's dumber than a box of rocks. Myriam Boyer plays Jeanne and Jeanne Herviale plays La tante.
Cinematography was by Pierre-William Glenn. A fun film screencaps from Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics. 7/10.
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