Film Review
Le Témoin appears to be the answer to one of those daft conundrums
you find in Christmas crackers:
what do you get if you cross a Claude
Chabrol thriller with an Italian comedy of the 1970s? It is the
most implausible mélange of genres that works suprisingly well, although
it came about by chance, when the actor that Jean-Pierre Mocky had originally
given one of the lead roles to - Jean Gabin - died within a few days of accepting
the part. Mocky managed to rescue the film (a loose adaptation of Harrison
Judd's 1962 crime novel
Shadow of a Doubt) with the support of Italian
backers, and it was they who insisted on a big name Italian actor for the
lead role - and they didn't come much bigger than Alberto Sordi, the
primo
uomo of Italian film comedy. Sordi's larger than life presence
guaranteed the film would acquire a very different identity to the one that
Mocky had originally intended, and the result is one of the director's most
inspired and entertaining films - certainly the best thing he put his name
to in the 1970s.
Le Témoin's glaring split identity (apparent in the mismatch
between the sombre visuals and weirdly euphoric score) is accentuated by
the wildly contrasting personalities and acting styles of its two lead actors.
In just about every respect Philippe Noiret is the complete opposite of Alberto
Sordi and yet they work together brilliantly, the darkness of one conflicting
with the brightness of the other to form a kind of stark chiaroscuro representation
of the human soul. Sordi, as ever the likeable clown, is the sympathetic
hero who allows himself to get chewed up by the warped monstrosity that was
the French judicial system of the 1970s. Noiret is the pillar of the
establishment, a Chabrolian bad man archetype with dangerous psychopathic
tendencies who is protected from the law by his bourgeois connections.
Noiret's performance - undoubtedly one of his best - is a masterclass of
subtlety, fascinating to watch as the layers of oily respectability fall
from his character's back to reveal the monster within. In comparison,
Sordi's turn is gloriously over the top, just what you would expect in a
manic Italian farce, but at the same time it is devastatingly poignant. You
feel the inner agonies of Sordi's character as he wrestles with the dilemma
of betraying his friend, and then his growing horrror when he realises he
is caught in a judicial trap from which there is no escape. It is the
jarring contrast between these two screen titans that makes
Le Témoin
such an effective and entertaining piece of social commentary - it allows
Mocky to get across his anti-establishment messages more forcefully than
ever, without resorting to his usual crude excesses. (That said, the
director still manages to work in the politicians kissing the bankers' backsides
gag.)
Le Témoin was highly topical when it came out in 1978 as its
primary target was the death penalty, a subject around which there was a
frenzied debate in France prior to its abolition in 1981. Mocky doesn't
waste time mulling over the morality of capital punishment (i.e. whether
the State has the right to execute its citizens). Instead he invites
us to consider its inherent flaws - not only the obvious fact that it can
lead to the execution of someone who has been wrongly convicted, but that
it can also create totally perverse outcomes, through people's reasonable
fears of the consequences of the ultimate sanction being applied.
In
Le Témoin, Alberto Sordi's character witnesses a crime but
he cannot bring himself to testify against the man he suspects (Noiret) through
fear that, if he is mistaken, an innocent party will be guillotined.
As a result, he unwittingly makes himself the prime suspect and, not having
friends in high places to help him out, his slow march to the scaffold has
a grim inevitability about it. Mocky makes the point well that France's
judiciary is skewed in favour of the rich and powerful, even more so when
the shadow of the guillotine is seen in the background, whilst the ordinary
man has to fend for himself and, in doing so, risks tying the noose around
his own neck.
Like José Giovanni's
Deux hommes dans la ville
(1973) and Michel Drach's
Le
Pull-over rouge (1979),
Le Témoin provides some excellent
arguments against capital punishment and no doubt it played a part in influencing
public opinion in the years preceding its long overdue abolition in France.
Because the death penalty had already been outlawed in Italy (hence the film's
political message was lost in that country), Mocky was easily railroaded
by his Italian producers into changing the ending, so that the condemned
man comes back to life after having been decapitated. Thankfully, the
French version of the film is spared this absurd flight of fancy and instead
it ends, as it should, on a suitably quiet and sombre note.
Far more controversial is Mocky's handling of a subject that has become much
more sensitive since the film was first seen, namely paedophilia.
Le
Témoin shows an eerie prescience in warning against the paedophile
witch-hunts and vigilantism that have become an almost daily occurrence these
days, helped by the increasingly sanctimonious, overly sensational and laughably
moralistic media. Even for someone of his
agent provocateur
standing, Mocky is remarkably even-handed in his treatment of this issue
and he makes a good case against rushing to judgement when crimes of underage
sex are committed. Vigilante murders motivated by righteous indignation
should be no less sickening to us than state-authorised executions.
Noiret's character is hardly a model of virtue and yet, disgusting though
his crimes are, we are compelled to show him some sympathy whilst recognising
that he was lured into an illicit act by a promiscuous teenager who was only
too well aware of her power over the male sex. Whilst it would be ludicrous
to deny the existence of paedophiles, it is surely the banalisation of sex
and sexualisation of pre-teens (helped by the same media that go after sex
offenders like packs of rampaging wolves) that makes occurrences of paedophilic
acts more widespread. In
Le Témoin a flawed judiciary
and a botched vigilante assault conspire to deliver a just punishment, but
with collateral damage that no civilised society should tolerate. Jean-Pierre Mocky
would return to the thorny subject of paedophilia (albeit far less successfully)
in his later film
Les Ballets
écarlates (2007).
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Jean-Pierre Mocky film:
Y a-t-il un Français dans la salle? (1982)
Film Synopsis
Robert Maurisson is a successful businessman who married into a rich bourgeois
family and is now one of the most important people in Reims. It is
he who invites Antonio Berti, an old friend of his, to restore the medieval
paintings in the city's cathedral. Berti's work proceeds without incident
until the fateful day when his teenage model Cathy is found dead, strangled,
not far from an uninhabited house owned by Robert. On the night when
the girl was killed, Antonio was passing the house when he thought he noticed
his friend engaged in a sexual act. Realising that the painter suspects
him of committing the crime, Robert advises him to keep his mouth shut, otherwise
he might incriminate an innocent man and cause him to be executed by mistake.
Antonio's silence protects Robert but it leads superintendent Guérin,
the man leading the police investigation, to arrest the Maurissons' gardener.
It turns out that the latter has a cast-iron alibi and is soon released.
Antonio is now torn - he has doubts over Robert's innocence and yet he cannot
bring himself to betray a friend who may have had nothing to do with the
crime. Unsure what to do, he checks Robert's alibi and finds it to
be bogus. Having failed to reason with Antonio, Robert resorts to intimidating
him during a spot of game hunting in the country. By now suspicion
has begun to fall on Antonio, and when he fails to produce an alibi and a
witness comes forward with the news that he was seen fondling another girl
in his car (Cathy's replacement model) his guilt seems pretty evident.
With his family willing to testify that he was with them on the night of
the murder Robert is now in the clear. Knowing that his arrest is imminent,
Antonio begs Robert to help him. Together, they plan to escape to Italy,
where the death penalty has long been abolished. But before he can
join his friend Robert is mistaken for Antonio by Cathy's father and shot
dead. Now there is nothing that can save Antonio from the guillotine...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.