CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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.

epat Garde à Vue is a sound police procedural & Lino Ventura, whether cop or criminal, is always reliable. His Inspecteur Gallien was every bit as good as I'd expected & Michel Serreault was quite adept as the suspect Martinaud too. Romy Schneider as his wife, however, seemed stiff & wooden — tho that could have been intentional.That said, Gallien was the only one whose behavior seemed at all realistic. All other human interactions — including those of the other cop, Belmont — seem peculiar if not bizarre. Even Martinaud, tho well acted, seems forced & not quite lifelike.The plot-line leads nowhere & parachuting in the real killer for a surprise ending like that strikes me as cheesy. What kind of moron reports his car stolen, knowing he'd left a murdered child's corpse in his trunk? I can't recall Schneider's reasons for living down the hall rather than getting a divorce, but her suicide struck me as more bathetic than dramatic.I know, I know, criminals can be exceedingly stupid, many cases end up being solved by sheer fluke & people do inexplicable things. Gallien aside tho, everything these people do or say strikes me as surreal. Maybe it's supposed to? I dunno. I know this film is considered a classic; I just wish I could say I enjoyed it.

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.

taylor9885 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.