Film Review
Seven years before he scored a critical and commercial hit with
Les
Valseuses (1974), director Bertrand Blier made his feature
debut with an idiosyncratic little film that - inexplicably - has been
all but forgotten.
Si
j'étais un espion (
Breakdown)
is a minimalist spy thriller that fits more comfortably into John le
Carré's crepuscular world of shadowy secret agents than the
warped universe in which Blier indulges his fascination for gender
identity and sexual morality. Blier made the film at a time when
the spy movie was at the height of its popularity, but he steered clear
of the genre's now tired conventions (guns, girls and gadgets, à
la James Bond) and instead takes us into something far closer to the
reality of modern day espionage. It's a strange and subtly
disturbing film that looks as if Joseph Kafka and Harold Pinter both
had a hand in its creation.
The spy thriller was a genre that Blier had some experience of, having
worked as an assistant on Georges Lautner's
Le
Monocle noir (1961). He began his directing career
with two short films,
Hitler,
connais pas (1963) and
La
Grimace (1966), before taking the plunge with his first feature
Si j'étais un espion, with
his father, the illustrious screen actor Bernard Blier, in the central
role. The film's poor reception led Blier
fils to abandon filmmaking and to
instead forge a career as a writer. Ironically, it was by
adapting his best-selling novel
Les
Valseuses that he made his name as a director and rapidly became
one of French cinema's most esteemed auteurs.
Si j'étais un espion is
unlike any film that Bertrand Blier would subsequently make, yet,
running through it, there is that unmistakable sense of absurdity which
permeates all of his other work. Of Blier's better known films,
the one it most calls to mind is
Buffet
froid (1979), a bleak existential comedy in which Blier senior
also crops up, in a not-too-dissimilar role. In his son's first
feature, Bernard Blier plays a timid Mr Everyman (a doctor by trade)
who gets himself lured into the murky world of political espionage by
accident (or so we are led to think). Blier is so convincing in
the role that we never doubt for a second that he is an innocent victim
enmeshed in a Kafkaesque intrigue, whilst the man who hassles him - a
superbly sinister Bruno Cremer - is clearly a lifelong habitué
of the netherworld of espionage.
In the course of the film, the roles of the lead characters are
partially reversed - Cremer becomes more sympathetic and human, Blier
more ambiguous and distant, and what fascinates most is the strange
relationship that develops between the two men as they each attempt to
unravel the other's identity. Throughout, there is an uneasy
sense that both men are pawns in a far bigger game, manipulated and
controlled by invisible forces in a way that anticipates the cynical
néo-polars of the following decade.
Darkly compelling,
Si j'étais un espion
deserves to be considered one of Bertrand Blier's more inspired works,
not one that lies forgotten in the shadows.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Bertrand Blier film:
Les Valseuses (1974)
Film Synopsis
Dr Lefèvre is a widower who leads a peaceful life with his
daughter Sylvie in the suburbs of Paris. One evening, he is
called to visit one of his patients, a depressive named Guérin,
but gets no reply when he rings the doorbell. A short while
later, Lefèvre is lured into an empty apartment where two
strangers try, unsuccessfully, to extract from him Guérin's new
address. When he returns home, Lefèvre finds another man,
Matras, going through his collection of holiday photos. Matras is
interested in Lefèvre's recent visit to Warsaw, where he first
made contact with Guérin. Realising that his daughter's
life may be in danger, Lefèvre has no choice but to cooperate,
not knowing whether Matras is a secret service agent or a
gangster...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.