L’Homme qui a perdu son ombre (1991)

L’Homme qui a perdu son ombre is a French film comedy-drama first released in 1991, directed by Alain Tanner.  The film stars Francisco Rabal, Dominic Gould, Ángela Molina, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Jean-Gabriel Nordmann.  It has also been released under the title: The Man Who Lost His Shadow.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Suffering from a creative block, a writer, Paul, walks away from his wife and job and hides away in a remote Spanish resort in the hope of regaining his inspiration.  He spends his time touring the desert on his motorbike and philosophising with an older man, Antonio, who fought in the Spanish civil war.  Unable to account for Paul’s behaviour, his wife, Anne, contacts his former girlfriend Maria and persuades her to help find Paul and persuade him to return.  When the two women suddenly re-appear in his life, Paul is far from pleased...

The austere setting for this romantic drama serves to underscore the barren nature of the plot and its weak characterisation – a rare disappointment from acclaimed Swiss director Alain Tanner.  Although beautifully filmed in places, it is difficult to take an interest in the somewhat implausible plot and lacklustre dialogue delivered by actors who are visibly struggling to make any sense of their characters.  The film contains some interesting ideas (such as the need to get the right balance between constructive solitude and destructive isolation) but few of these are explored as coherently or as fully as they perhaps might.

© James Travers 2002

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