This was the first film by Jacques Audiard whose father Michel wrote more than 120 screenplays, mostly pedestrian though he did work, for instance on Les Tontons Flinguers. Jacques himself eased his way into directing via writing and won a minor writing credit on Toni Marshall's Venus Beaute though it's difficult to imagine exactly what he contributed given that the world of his four feature films - he followed this with Un heros tres discret, Sure mes levres and this years De battre mon couer s'est arrete - is light years away from that of Marshall. On balance it's not a world I care much about though usually there's at least something to admire - Manu Devos for example - in each one with the possible exception of the last. In this debut he got to work with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jean Yanne and an elliptical plot that emerges like Kafka being proof-read by Faulkner. It takes a while but eventually we realize that Marx (Trintignant) is addicted to gambling but not, alas, to winning. To get out of the hole he reluctantly agrees to 'hit' someone but finds he can't do it so a younger man, Johnny (Matthieu Kassovitz) with learning difficulties, who has attached himself to Marx, volunteers to deputise, thus do people bond. Somewhere along the line Johnny wastes an undercover cop Mickey (Yvon Back) which disturbs Michey's friend Simon Hirsch (Jean Yanne) so much that he sets out on an individual crusade to track down the killers. Would that it were as simple as I've described it here but it seems that Audiard doesn't do straightforward we're fed information via an eye-dropper whilst incidentally exploring the world of homo-eroticism. Bulle Ogier, a major selling-point for me has a blink-and-you'll miss it cameo and that's about it. I'm glad I saw it but wouldn't necessarily go back for seconds.
Review of See How They Fall
