Tiré à part (1996)
Directed by Bernard Rapp

Film Review

With this meticulous, glacially cold suspense thriller, Bernard Rapp realised one of his most personal ambitions - to enter the world of filmmaking - after a hugely successful career as a television journalist and writer in France. In the 1980s, Rapp presented the evening news on the French TV channel Antenne 2 (the predessor of France 2), but he was also an ardent cinephile who edited an impressive dictionary of films, Dictionnaire mondial des films. Although Rapp's decision to have the dialogue split between French and English seems somewhat perverse, Tiré à part is nonetheless a fairly respectable directorial debut with some fitting nods to Hitchcock adding to the brooding mood of the piece.

Terence Stamp is an inspired casting choice for the role of the unscrupulous publisher pursuing the cruellest of vendettas. Stamp's chilling portrayal is the film's biggest asset and makes up for Rapp's somewhat bland direction - indeed it might well have inspired Rapp's next film, Une affaire de goût (2000) in which Bernard Giraudeau plays a similarly cold-hearted sadist embarking on a game of manipulation for his own dubious ends. Bernard Rapp never had time to master his new profession or indeed make any great impresion - he died from cancer after making just five films (including one for television), but Tiré à part is an intriguing work that is well worth watching, if only for Stamp's gripping performance.

Film Synopsis

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.