When the children of rich parents make a revolution: Jean-Louis Trintignant and Henri Serre fight for Romy Schneider
Alain Cavalier made a strangely impressive film at the beginning of the 1960s. Anne (GOLDEN GLOBE candidate Romy Schneider) and Clement (FELIX prize winner Jean-Louis Trintignant) are young married, she is a former actress and he is the son of a rich company owner. But Clement doesn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps, preferring to join Serge's (Pierre Asso) right-wing extremist group. Clement will soon carry out his first assassination attempt on an overly left-wing trade union leader. The shot is successful, but Serge has badly betrayed him. Together with Anne, Clement stays with a friend from the Algerian war. This Paul (Henri Serre, known from "Jules and Jim") is in many ways the exact opposite of Clement: newly widowed, owner of a small printing company that trains three apprentices. As Clement chases after the fugitive Serge to South America to finally judge him, Anne and Paul grow closer and closer. When Clement returns after Serge's execution has been completed, only one last confrontation with his rival Paul remains: the fight on the island...
As if Oscar nominee Jean Paul Rappeneau ("Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Hussar on the Roof" as director) was already anticipating the contrasts of the 1968 era in his script, the conflict between love of peace and radical resistance is fought out here. Of course it's also about Romy, but the argument is much deeper. Both men are familiar with weapons through their service in Algeria, both are dependent on a female hand in the household, so they are still very much caught up in the traditional life of a man. But they made different decisions based on this initial situation. And that makes this film - despite an annoying narrator's voice - still an interesting contemporary document. For Romy Schneider, the film was the breakthrough in French cinema, even though it flopped at the box office. But a film with her can't be bad at all. One of the members of the right-wing terrorist group is played by director Jean Pierre Melville ("Le Samourai").
Alain Cavalier made a strangely impressive film at the beginning of the 1960s. Anne (GOLDEN GLOBE candidate Romy Schneider) and Clement (FELIX prize winner Jean-Louis Trintignant) are young married, she is a former actress and he is the son of a rich company owner. But Clement doesn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps, preferring to join Serge's (Pierre Asso) right-wing extremist group. Clement will soon carry out his first assassination attempt on an overly left-wing trade union leader. The shot is successful, but Serge has badly betrayed him. Together with Anne, Clement stays with a friend from the Algerian war. This Paul (Henri Serre, known from "Jules and Jim") is in many ways the exact opposite of Clement: newly widowed, owner of a small printing company that trains three apprentices. As Clement chases after the fugitive Serge to South America to finally judge him, Anne and Paul grow closer and closer. When Clement returns after Serge's execution has been completed, only one last confrontation with his rival Paul remains: the fight on the island...
As if Oscar nominee Jean Paul Rappeneau ("Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Hussar on the Roof" as director) was already anticipating the contrasts of the 1968 era in his script, the conflict between love of peace and radical resistance is fought out here. Of course it's also about Romy, but the argument is much deeper. Both men are familiar with weapons through their service in Algeria, both are dependent on a female hand in the household, so they are still very much caught up in the traditional life of a man. But they made different decisions based on this initial situation. And that makes this film - despite an annoying narrator's voice - still an interesting contemporary document. For Romy Schneider, the film was the breakthrough in French cinema, even though it flopped at the box office. But a film with her can't be bad at all. One of the members of the right-wing terrorist group is played by director Jean Pierre Melville ("Le Samourai").