Tiré à part (1996) - film review

Edward Lamb, the owner of a small publishing house, is surprised when he receives a manuscript from a French author, Nicholas Fabry.  Unlike Fabry’s earlier literary attempts, this is a masterpiece, a work which will undoubtedly earn him wealth and celebrity.  However, on reading the manuscript, Lamb discovers that Fabry was responsible for the death of the only woman he loved.  Determined to have his revenge, the publisher contrives an elaborate plot to make it appear that Fabry plagiarised an earlier work and thereby bring about the writer’s ruin.

With this meticulous, ice-cold suspense thriller, Bernard Rapp realised one of his most personal ambitions – to enter the world of film-making – after a hugely successful career as a television journalist and writer in France.   Although Rapp’s decision to have the dialogue split between French and English was probably a mistake (it is certainly an irritation for those who are not bilingual), Tiré à part is nonetheless an impressive first film, with some wonderfully pleasing Hitchcockian moments.  The intensely brooding mood of the piece (which is largely brought about by Terence Stamp’s masterfully de-humanised performance) is evident in Rapp’s later films, which, as here, take a deliciously wry look at the darker side of human nature.

© James Travers 2003

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Fantastic, Excellent? Terence Stamp y A poer star, and the production, argument, direction and edition is sorprendet. My english is very bad, but congratullations for to bring us this extraordinarie story? dark, cold, visceral, it’s true: the revange to be eat cold?
Eduardo A. Tonelli (Argentina) 

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