morrison-dylan-fan Aware that I was getting close to giving my 2000th IMDb rating,I started planning on what the rated title would be.At first going for Henri-Georges Clouzot's La Vérité/The Truth,I was disappointed to find the official French DVD to have "broken English" Subtitles. When taking part recently in a poll for the best films of 1981, Garde a vue was at the very top of my "most wanted" list for the year. Telling a DVD seller this round the time I got the Clouzot,I was thrilled to hear that they had recently tracked down Garde,which has led to it getting my 2000th rating.The plot:Missing out on New Years Eve celebrations, Inspector Antoine Gallien and Inspector Marcel Belmont sit in an interrogation room interviewing attorney Emile Martinaud. With Martinaud (who was on his own each time) having reported to the police two young girls he found raped and murdered, Gallien and Belmont put Martinaud under as being the likely killer. Interviewing him for hours, Belmont and Gallien are unable to any substantial evidence from Martinaud,which leads to Gallien interviewing Martinaud's wife Chantal,and learning of the hidden corridors in Martinaud's life.View on the film:Making her penultimate film,Romy Schneider gives a haunting performance as Chantal which reflects the deep troubles Schneider was having in her life,from the interview Chantal has with Gallien being given a washed out mood by Schneider, in expressing the breakdown of the Martinaud's marriage. Left to do the typing in the interrogation, Guy Marchand gives a cracking performance as Belmont, whose frustrations Marchand makes crackle on screen,as Belmont sees the "murderer" in front of him,but unable to lay a finger on him.Stamping round the interrogation room, Lino Ventura gives a magnificent performance as Gallien,who is given a calculating tact by Ventura,which shatters from Gallien's passion to bring justice to the murdered girls. Caught in the hard line the cops take, Michel Serrault digs Martinaud's heels in with an upper-crust self belief,which crumbles as the interrogation unveil the Neo-Noir loss at wits end behind Martinaud businessman façade.Joined by his wife Annie playing a major role in the flashback scenes, co-writer/(with Jean Herman and Michel Audiard) director Claude Miller & cinematographer Bruno Nuytten sit in on the interrogation with a stylish,pristine appearance wiping any brightness away for dour,white and grey Noir colours. Keeping all the guys in one room, Miller fires up the claustrophobic anxiety with tightly coiled whip-pans across the confined location,which sweep into hard-nosed close-ups lingering on each vicious exchange.Taking John Wainwright's book into the station,the writers superbly intercut flashbacks to the murder scenes and Martinaud's private life to emphasise the importance of what Gallien and Belmont attempt to uncover. Taking place against a "stage" setting, the writers keep the Neo- Noir atmosphere fresh with incredibly subtle changes in the dialogue,from everyone trying to get under the skin of each other,to Gallien, Martinaud and Belmont spitting out their frustrations,of all being under suspicion.

writers_reign 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.

Paolo Macachor 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 5/5

doctorrugger 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.