Good movie but grossly overrated

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Although Michel Audiard was still trying a little too hard to prove he was fit to change the typewriter ribbons of the great quartet of French screenplay writers, Jacques Prevert, Jean Aurenche, Charles Spaak and Henri Jeannson (with, of course, a nod to Aurenche's long-time partner Pierre Bost) there is much to admire in this eight-hander in which all four performances - Romy Schneider, Guy Marchand, Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura - sparkle like vintage wine albeit wine being sipped whilst watching Gotterdamarung at Bayreuth. It's one of those films where plot is a bad nowhere to Theme and where cat-and-mouse aspires to be St. George And The Dragon but fails in the stretch. What remains is a Master-Class in Screen Acting, a mood and a tension - if Audiard can spare a little word-play.

Garde à Vue has to be seen a number of times in order to understand the sub-plots it contains. If you're not used to french wordy films, based upon conversation and battle of wits rather than on action, don't even try to watch it. You'll only obtain boredom to death, and reassured opinion that french movies are not for you.Garde à Vue is a wordy film, essentially based upon dialogs (written by Audiard by the way)and it cruelly cuts the veil of appearances.Why does Maître Martineau (Serrault) prefer to be unduly accused of being a child murderer rather than telling the truth ? Because at the time of the murder he was with a 18 years old girl with whom he has a 8-years sexual relation. His wife knows it, she's jealous of it and he prefers to be executed (in 1980 in France, there was still death penalty)rather than unveiling the sole "pure and innocent" aspect of his pitiful life.

What keeps us going - or at least what I feel the writer wanted us to keep us glued at an early point is our desire to know whether Martinaud has done the dirty deed. Without spoiling so much, of course there is a red herring and a twist. But then we discover that this is the story of Martinaud's imperfections and his difficulty in coping. When there is the revelation - we begin to sympathize and pity him because as the story progresses we are made to think he is the sick, perverted pedophiliac that we're predisposed to have in mind. One of those things he has to cope with is the distant gap he and his wife have even though they live on the same roof. These problems of course are given their denouement in the film's shocking finale.This movie demands your patience and it has certainly tried those of restless teenagers sitting at the rear. They were heckling obviously because they aren't partial to "central location" films. Although there is a bit of travelling, when we get to the woods and the beach. And we realize that Gallien isn't as clever as we are made to think he is.The Inquisitor is Grade A-

Miller is not well known in North America. He made a superb first feature called La meilleure facon de marcher, about two young instructors at a summer camp. One terrorizes the other with insults and physical abuse designed to provoke a homosexual response. The typical Miller film has a central figure under a lot of pressure, either self-imposed or coming from others. Here we have a rich lawyer (Serrault, so wonderful in La cage aux folles) accused of raping and killing two young girls. He is being interrogated on New Year's eve in a sterile office by two detectives who would rather be out celebrating.As the night wears on, Serrault becomes more and more frustrated and anguished since the questioning turns as much on his married life as on his alibis for the two girls. His marriage is a sham; his wife married him for his money and they haven't made love in ten years. Romy Schneider made a great cameo as the wife resigned to her wretched, loveless but upwardly-mobile arrangement. She died soon after the film was released.The main characters are all superbly played. Guy Marchand is the dumber of the two cops; he's sweating under the lights and hates the accused man even more for his veiled insults. Lino Ventura plays Gallien with a fine combination of tact and anger. He can't forget the photos of the victims. I'll just mention Bruno Nuytten's fine camera work; the night scenes in a steady rain are well done. This is one of the finest crime films from France and should be widely seen.