Bertrand Tavernier was arguably the greatest French director of the turn of the century ; he ended his career with a wonderful doc miniseries in which he payed a tribute to old directors (he can be considered their peer now) : the true heir of Renoir,Carné ,Duvivier ,Clouzot,Autant-lara, Clément et al .He never produced anything mediocre .
It was the second time I had watched this movie and hindsight displays some flaws: the Piccoli/Pascal relationship descends towards the banality of the man subject to the middle-aged lust who sleeps with a girl half his age; the "spoilt child" -all in all , Piccoli and his collaborator are privileged people who do not have to worry to make ends meet ,let alone to pay a rent (one can catch a glimpse of his bourgeois dwelling; the scenes with his wife and the children she helps are overkill and may be a blueprint of what will be fully realized in "ça commence aujourd'hui "-; besides their screenplay is devoid of interest ,bearing no relation to the tenants' problems ...And unlike his first effort" l'horloger de Saint-Paul " and the admirable "un dimanche à la campagne" ,to name but two, it sounds dated now,very "seventies".
Now for the good news : the song over the cast and credits is sung by famous actors :Jean rochefort and Jean-Pierre Marielle ,not appearing in the film : their "Paris jadis " musette lament longs for the "Paname (slang for Paris)of yore " when the landscape was not still invaded by high buildings ,often intended for offices ,not for housing ; Tavernier brillantly films these urban landscapes where the children are not even given a decent place to play and where the tenants are threatened with eviction from their apartment. Unemployment which already ran rampant is represented by lovely Christine
Pascal -but this side of her character is not really convincing:she is more efficient as a militant tenant who urges the others to rebel against the landlord who increases outrageously the service charges .
The rapport the tenants have between them is warmful and the evening when one of them shows his guests holiday slides is a nice memory of bygone days .And the fact that a bourgeois man (par excellence the spoilt child) gets involved in the fight for a square deal with the owner shows Tavernier's social concern (which would emerge again,more convincingly,as he would make his way through the following decades.)
