Film Review
In recent years, the old-fashioned gangster film has been experiencing
something of a new lease of life in French cinema, satisfying both a
modern day craving for visceral escapism and a burgeoning wave of
nostalgia for the good old days of the classic polar. In the wake
of Alain Corneau's over-arty remake of the classic
Le Deuxième souffle,
2008 saw the release of two full-bodied gangster films set in the 1970s
- Jean-François Richet's blockbuster diptych
Mesrine and
Les Liens du sang, a far more
modest production from Jacques Maillot. Both of these latter
films are intense, imaginative reworkings of a much-loved genre, and
both are based on real-life events. As impressive as the
Mesrine films are, it is Maillot's
more understated work which has the edge when it comes to presenting us
with believable characters and a realistic portrayal of the
1970s. The film even looks as if it were made in that decade, so
perfectly does it evoke the era of implausibly long hair and truly
hideous home decor.
Les Liens
du sang is Jacques Maillot's second and most inspired feature to date. Having
scored a notable success with his debut film,
Nos vies heureuses (1999), he
spent most of the next eight years developing a screen adaptation of
the autobiographical book by the Papet brothers. Originally,
Maillot had intended to make a television series of six or seven
90-minute episodes but, having failed to sell the concept to French
television, he was driven to make it into a feature film. The
film's long gestation period allowed Maillot to develop a rigorous
screenplay of exceptional quality, offering a well-constructed
narrative in which every character is convincingly drawn, avoiding the
kind of overt clichés and plot contrivance to which the policier
genre is particularly prone. In both the slickly realised action
sequences and the more intimate character scenes, Maillot directs his
film with flair and intelligence. With its gruesomely authentic
period detail and yellow tinted photography, the film instantly calls
to mind the drab washed-up feel of the late '70s, and one or two
sequences would not be out of place in an episode of
Starsky and Hutch.
François Cluzet and Guillaume Canet are superb as the leads
Gabriel and François, two brothers who chose to make careers on
opposite sides of the law (and thereby proved that they are two of a
kind). It is the intense performances from these actors on
which the film hinges, since
Les
Liens du sang is as much a character study as it is a homage to
the classic French polar. Cluzet and Canet complement one another
perfectly, the former brooding and mercurial, the latter good-natured
and vulnerable. Outwardly their two characters are complete
opposites, but the more we get to know them the more we realises that
they are cut from the same cloth, loners who are bent on proving
themselves in a tough world. What the two characters
share is an inability to escape from the groove into which they have
slipped. In true film noir fashion, both Gabriel and
François are doomed to play out the roles that have been decided
for them. There is no hope of redemption for either of them, no
second throw of the dice.
With its compelling performances, well-crafted story and stylish but
unpretentious mise-en-scène,
Les
Liens du sang is easily one of the best French crime dramas in
recent years. Both Cluzet and Canet transcend the familiar noir
stereotypes and imbue their respective characters with depth and
humanity, making the shock ending all the more
poignant. The film works both as a homage to the gangster
films and police procedurals that virtually monopolised TV and cinema
screens in the 1970s and an insightful excursion into the darker
passages of the human psyche. Whether its impending American
remake (from director James Gray) will prove to be anywhere near as
effective remains to be seen. This will be a hard act to follow.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Jacques Maillot film:
La Mer à boire (2012)