This film is a brilliant portrayal of a man caught between his private memories of a fugitive son and the political interpretations of his son's actions. There is a constant interplay between Michel Descombes's private existence, individualized profession (as an artisan, he is necessarily the opposite of a mass producer), and the public spectacle that his son has become. It is truly a fascinating commentary on subversion and freedom, wonderfully played by Noiret and other greats, that provides incredible emotional depth.
19 Reviews
Intelligent movie
MarioB24 December 1999
I'm a big fan of director Bertrand Tavernier. For me, he's the best French director of the past 30 years. This is one of his early works of the seventies and it had all the elements that makes the great personality of his films. Above all : a great sense of reality. Sometimes, his movies looks like they were improvised, but, in fact, it can't really be. This one is like an emotional crescendo. In the begening, we didn't really know what's going on and what kind of man Philippe Noiret is playing. In the middle, we had a great idea, but we don't know that the last minutes will be so full of intense emotions. The great Noiret and Tavernier will make several other movies together. This is one is among the best.
A Fine, Acute Dramatic Exercise
jzappa4 September 2008
The Clockmaker is a technically well-crafted precision endeavor in direction, writing, and acting. Director Bertrand Tavernier fashions a subtle, conservative character study asserted into the framework of a crime story, a study of an aging, middle-class clockmaker with a downcast disposition, played, or rather inhabited, by Philippe Noiret. This commonplace man is stunned out of his sluggishness when he finds out that his only son has been arrested for murder.
What is poignant about this story, and what improves the usually dormant drama of a crime film, is that Noiret lives quietly, alone with his son, who is almost grown up. In other words, his son is his whole tranquil life. Yet, when a detective played by mulishly tenacious Jean Rochefort asks him for help with the case, Noiret grasps how little he knows about his son, and struggles with his feeling that he is unable to blame him.
The film opens on Noiret having a night out, when his friends crack wise on the elections, the leftists, a protest rally, and the death penalty. He has fun this night. The next day two policemen come to his shop and rummage around his adjoining apartment. They particularly search his son's room before taking him to the police station where Rochefort tells him his son is wanted for murder of a security guard at the place where his girlfriend was fired, and has not been apprehended. There was even an eyewitness.
Tavernier puts Noiret's character through a motley crew of odd dramatic angles aside from just the press, who are of course just interested in ratings, but also tangents to the main thread of the film like right-wing hooligans who vandalize his window and two girls who confirm how vile the murdered guard was to women. The skillful essence of the film is in the abstractness of it, giving us impressions of how much his relationship with his son means to him, and how bewildered he is that he has no idea what to do to help his son, such as in his transit back home from the precinct and can't stand without feeling ill and has to ask a passenger for his seat.
The film is not hard-hitting enough to be great, but it serves its locale with an authentic atmosphere. The story itself, no matter how well it poignantly portrays a world in miniature, is nevertheless very slight. On the whole, The Clockmaker is a dramatic exercise. As many other French films from the 1960s and '70s were, it is less about telling the story and more about technique. It doesn't compare to the boisterousness and self-consciousness of most of the New Wave films of that time, and in fact is a particularly subtle film. It is essentially a film that says of film-making, "Yes, less is more."
What is poignant about this story, and what improves the usually dormant drama of a crime film, is that Noiret lives quietly, alone with his son, who is almost grown up. In other words, his son is his whole tranquil life. Yet, when a detective played by mulishly tenacious Jean Rochefort asks him for help with the case, Noiret grasps how little he knows about his son, and struggles with his feeling that he is unable to blame him.
The film opens on Noiret having a night out, when his friends crack wise on the elections, the leftists, a protest rally, and the death penalty. He has fun this night. The next day two policemen come to his shop and rummage around his adjoining apartment. They particularly search his son's room before taking him to the police station where Rochefort tells him his son is wanted for murder of a security guard at the place where his girlfriend was fired, and has not been apprehended. There was even an eyewitness.
Tavernier puts Noiret's character through a motley crew of odd dramatic angles aside from just the press, who are of course just interested in ratings, but also tangents to the main thread of the film like right-wing hooligans who vandalize his window and two girls who confirm how vile the murdered guard was to women. The skillful essence of the film is in the abstractness of it, giving us impressions of how much his relationship with his son means to him, and how bewildered he is that he has no idea what to do to help his son, such as in his transit back home from the precinct and can't stand without feeling ill and has to ask a passenger for his seat.
The film is not hard-hitting enough to be great, but it serves its locale with an authentic atmosphere. The story itself, no matter how well it poignantly portrays a world in miniature, is nevertheless very slight. On the whole, The Clockmaker is a dramatic exercise. As many other French films from the 1960s and '70s were, it is less about telling the story and more about technique. It doesn't compare to the boisterousness and self-consciousness of most of the New Wave films of that time, and in fact is a particularly subtle film. It is essentially a film that says of film-making, "Yes, less is more."
What makes Herr D tick?
realreel24 November 2003
"The Clockmaker" is a minor classic... so great, in fact, that nobody seems to know what to do with it. Why? Perhaps it doesn't fit neatly enough into the crime genre. The first shots are provocative: A child looks out from a train at a burning car. As the opening titles hit the screen, the music crescendoes. We know something bad has just happened; we brace ourselves for the violence to come. The cinematography here has the hard-hitting feel of exposé cinema (e.g., Costa-Gavras' `Z'.) As if leaving its promise unfulfilled, however, this is the film's most dramatic moment. The only violence, as it were, has occurred before the action director Bertrand Tavernier shows us. Much like its principal characters, we are left to contemplate what happened and WHY it took place.
The story is simple enough. Monsieur Decombes, a clockmaker, is interrupted at work by the local police. They inform him that his abandoned car was found by the side of the road, left there by Bernard, his son. Would he accompany them to go see it? Under this pretext, they bring him to the station, where he meets a mysteriously evasive Inspector Guilboud. They return to the vehicle together. Only then does the inspector confront him with the awful truth: Bernard and his girlfriend have killed a man. Decombes is shocked. How could his boy have done it? Throughout the rest of the film, he struggles to understand this hideous crime and his relationship with Bernard, ultimately left with more questions than answers.
Mainstream moviegoers find "The Clockmaker" boring and anticlimactic. They're used to seeing crime flicks with action and plot twists. Here, they know the identity of the murderer from the start, they never see a dead body or an exciting arrest, and 90% of the focus is on the criminal's father. What they're left with is an hour and a half of wayward wanderings... of "character development." What could be more pedestrian? One almost gets the sense that this was the very reason that Tavernier chose to bring Georges Simenon's book to the screen: It's structure is a full inversion of what audiences are used to. This is a point that deserves to be revisited later, as it has a great deal to do with the deeper meanings of this work.
While it won the Prix Louis Delluc, `The Clockmaker' has never been taken seriously by arthouse snobs either. They call its direction `heavy-handed.' They note the over-the-top performances of Philippe Noiret and Jacques Denis (not to mention Yves Afonso. runner-up to Alain Delon in the "too-cool-for-words" competition.) Oddly, they call it `commercial'... a conventional social melodrama. And while it isn't Hollywood melodrama of the Douglas Sirk or Nicholas Ray varieties, there is some validity in this assertion. The definition of `melodrama' describes the film well: `A composition. intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result.' And the point of the film is all-too-obvious: Love isn't clockwork.
I've heard `The Clockmaker' compared to many films, including those of the French New Wave that preceded it. Is there any similarity, though, between Tavernier's work and such melodramas as. say. Godard's `Vivre sa vie' or Truffaut's `The Soft Skin'? There isn't. Some have suggested that the film was the model for `The Sweet Hereafter', in that both deal with isolation and the loss of children. Yet, where Egoyan's film is politically neutral to the point of nihilism, `The Clockmaker' outlines a specific set of social conditions that made murder an inevitability. The factory watchman is the avatar for all social-climbing capitalists. abusing his authority toward lecherous ends. Liliane, Bernard's girlfriend, is the powerless victim. Whether or not Bernard pulled the trigger is immaterial. In effect, society has handed him the gun, cocked and loaded.
Personally, I find the film more similar to the work of the New German Cinema. particularly Fassbinder's `Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven.' Both films begin just after murders have been committed. Both films spotlight those who are left behind to deal with loved ones' unspeakable acts. Both films give us radicals and reactionaries, each determined to use the protagonists' woes to political advantage. Ultimately, `The Clockmaker' is the more profound work of the two. It is a true `slice of life' and not the stagy drama that `Mütter Küsters' is. Starting from a conservative stance in its opening scene, in which Decombes and his friends discuss the merits of capital punishment, it turns out to be a liberal piece. Its point, as I see it, is not merely that 'violence begets violence.' True love, in Tavernier's paradigm, comes not from hearing but from listening. not from validation but from understanding. not from making things run like clockwork but from accepting the bumps in the road as part of the journey.
The story is simple enough. Monsieur Decombes, a clockmaker, is interrupted at work by the local police. They inform him that his abandoned car was found by the side of the road, left there by Bernard, his son. Would he accompany them to go see it? Under this pretext, they bring him to the station, where he meets a mysteriously evasive Inspector Guilboud. They return to the vehicle together. Only then does the inspector confront him with the awful truth: Bernard and his girlfriend have killed a man. Decombes is shocked. How could his boy have done it? Throughout the rest of the film, he struggles to understand this hideous crime and his relationship with Bernard, ultimately left with more questions than answers.
Mainstream moviegoers find "The Clockmaker" boring and anticlimactic. They're used to seeing crime flicks with action and plot twists. Here, they know the identity of the murderer from the start, they never see a dead body or an exciting arrest, and 90% of the focus is on the criminal's father. What they're left with is an hour and a half of wayward wanderings... of "character development." What could be more pedestrian? One almost gets the sense that this was the very reason that Tavernier chose to bring Georges Simenon's book to the screen: It's structure is a full inversion of what audiences are used to. This is a point that deserves to be revisited later, as it has a great deal to do with the deeper meanings of this work.
While it won the Prix Louis Delluc, `The Clockmaker' has never been taken seriously by arthouse snobs either. They call its direction `heavy-handed.' They note the over-the-top performances of Philippe Noiret and Jacques Denis (not to mention Yves Afonso. runner-up to Alain Delon in the "too-cool-for-words" competition.) Oddly, they call it `commercial'... a conventional social melodrama. And while it isn't Hollywood melodrama of the Douglas Sirk or Nicholas Ray varieties, there is some validity in this assertion. The definition of `melodrama' describes the film well: `A composition. intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result.' And the point of the film is all-too-obvious: Love isn't clockwork.
I've heard `The Clockmaker' compared to many films, including those of the French New Wave that preceded it. Is there any similarity, though, between Tavernier's work and such melodramas as. say. Godard's `Vivre sa vie' or Truffaut's `The Soft Skin'? There isn't. Some have suggested that the film was the model for `The Sweet Hereafter', in that both deal with isolation and the loss of children. Yet, where Egoyan's film is politically neutral to the point of nihilism, `The Clockmaker' outlines a specific set of social conditions that made murder an inevitability. The factory watchman is the avatar for all social-climbing capitalists. abusing his authority toward lecherous ends. Liliane, Bernard's girlfriend, is the powerless victim. Whether or not Bernard pulled the trigger is immaterial. In effect, society has handed him the gun, cocked and loaded.
Personally, I find the film more similar to the work of the New German Cinema. particularly Fassbinder's `Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven.' Both films begin just after murders have been committed. Both films spotlight those who are left behind to deal with loved ones' unspeakable acts. Both films give us radicals and reactionaries, each determined to use the protagonists' woes to political advantage. Ultimately, `The Clockmaker' is the more profound work of the two. It is a true `slice of life' and not the stagy drama that `Mütter Küsters' is. Starting from a conservative stance in its opening scene, in which Decombes and his friends discuss the merits of capital punishment, it turns out to be a liberal piece. Its point, as I see it, is not merely that 'violence begets violence.' True love, in Tavernier's paradigm, comes not from hearing but from listening. not from validation but from understanding. not from making things run like clockwork but from accepting the bumps in the road as part of the journey.
Tavernier's tribute to the old wave.
dbdumonteil12 March 2005
Tavernier's treatment of Simenon takes us back to the veterans time,all those who made great adaptations just before the nouvelle vague and even during its heyday:"la mort de Belle" ,Edouard Molinaro's most perfect flick was made in 1963,at about the same time as François Truffault's "la peau douce",whose Simenon adaptation would be forgotten if it were not Truffault .
Molinaro's "la mort de Belle" and Henry Decoin's "les inconnus dans la maison"have a lot in common with "l'horloger de Saint-Paul;all these works deal with incommunicability,between people of the same family.For instance,in "les inconnus dans la maison" ,a fallen alcoholic lawyer does not care about his daughter anymore and one day very bad things happen;in "la mort de Belle" a high school teacher sees his life torn apart when he's a suspect when a young girl dies and even his wife who thinks she knows him well has her doubts .
Tavernier's first movie was not that much innovative -as works to come would be- as derivative.However ,it's a very commendable work,because of Philippe Noiret's sensational portrayal of a peaceful man ,who is confronted with tragedy when his son kills a b.... .Tavernier's science of pacing a movie already shines:the son only appears in the last quarter of the movie and during at least 15 minutes,the only words he says to dad are "bonjour papa" ;little by little,we feel that father and son stand together ,but they do not try to strike back ,to find alibis ,to avoid the punishment.In a grand gesture,Tavernier does not even film the trial!A terse comment lets us know about the sentence.The characters -the father ,the son and even the girlfriend (Christine Pascal)the b... raped - remain opaque,their motives remain obscure Liliane ,the son's lover has not a single line to say.We will never know why the son and the father were estranged -the scene with the boy's old nanny remains vague.During the last scenes looks matter more than words and when they start talking again,the son concludes: -and what a place(a noisy visiting room) for the first conversation in years!- "we can hear ourselves if we really want to!" Unlike Tavernier's follow-up "le juge et l'assassin" which was Tavernier's first perfect work,"l'horloger de Saint-Paul' does not avoid some post-68 clichés that were poisoning the French cinema of the seventies:the bedroom full of "revolutionary " posters,the bad cops-the conversation with detective Jean Rochefort in the train- ,the all-things -political which the hero fortunately refuse .
It's minor quibble.Considering all the important movies Tavernier would produce in the wake of 'l'horloger" ,it's almost even irrelevant.No other director has shown so many qualities in the last thirty years.
Molinaro's "la mort de Belle" and Henry Decoin's "les inconnus dans la maison"have a lot in common with "l'horloger de Saint-Paul;all these works deal with incommunicability,between people of the same family.For instance,in "les inconnus dans la maison" ,a fallen alcoholic lawyer does not care about his daughter anymore and one day very bad things happen;in "la mort de Belle" a high school teacher sees his life torn apart when he's a suspect when a young girl dies and even his wife who thinks she knows him well has her doubts .
Tavernier's first movie was not that much innovative -as works to come would be- as derivative.However ,it's a very commendable work,because of Philippe Noiret's sensational portrayal of a peaceful man ,who is confronted with tragedy when his son kills a b.... .Tavernier's science of pacing a movie already shines:the son only appears in the last quarter of the movie and during at least 15 minutes,the only words he says to dad are "bonjour papa" ;little by little,we feel that father and son stand together ,but they do not try to strike back ,to find alibis ,to avoid the punishment.In a grand gesture,Tavernier does not even film the trial!A terse comment lets us know about the sentence.The characters -the father ,the son and even the girlfriend (Christine Pascal)the b... raped - remain opaque,their motives remain obscure Liliane ,the son's lover has not a single line to say.We will never know why the son and the father were estranged -the scene with the boy's old nanny remains vague.During the last scenes looks matter more than words and when they start talking again,the son concludes: -and what a place(a noisy visiting room) for the first conversation in years!- "we can hear ourselves if we really want to!" Unlike Tavernier's follow-up "le juge et l'assassin" which was Tavernier's first perfect work,"l'horloger de Saint-Paul' does not avoid some post-68 clichés that were poisoning the French cinema of the seventies:the bedroom full of "revolutionary " posters,the bad cops-the conversation with detective Jean Rochefort in the train- ,the all-things -political which the hero fortunately refuse .
It's minor quibble.Considering all the important movies Tavernier would produce in the wake of 'l'horloger" ,it's almost even irrelevant.No other director has shown so many qualities in the last thirty years.
Perfection From Start to Finish
jromanbaker25 September 2020
Where has Bertrand Tavernier been all my life ? Only recently I have discovered his films and this is a shameful admission. To begin with I watched the equally perfect ' Une Semaine de Vacances ' and then this perfectly made film. In actual fact it should have been the other way around as the story ( to a certain extent, but revealing ) continues in ' Vacances '. I urge any new viewers to Tavernier to watch them together and not only for the pleasure of seeing the beautiful city of Lyon. So what do I find in both these films to be so exceptional ? In neither film is there a trace of sensationalism. In ' L'horloger de
Saint-Paul ' most of the violence is pared down and essentially the content of the film concentrates on character and the aftermath of violent action. Perhaps Tavernier would disagree with me but there is an element of Bresson in this but it does not detract from his own genius as director. Philippe Noiret who surely must be considered one of France's finest actors gives a performance beyond any criticism. He seems not to ' act ' at all and there is nothing showy about him, nothing of what the superficial respond to in glamour and this is rare in cinema. Jean Gabin had this quality but even with him there was an element of ego which Noiret seemed to dismiss entirely. I will not give away spoilers as the ' plot ' is clear in some other reviewers, but I will mention the final scenes. ' Pickpocket ' directed by Bresson comes to mind, and so does ' American Gigolo ' but stripped of all romance, but like those films mentioned it is filled with love and redemption. This is one of the essential French films to see. Bertrand Tavernier is certainly in my own Pantheon among the finest of directors.
Tavernier and Simenon
jotix10015 November 2004
Bernard Tavernier once confessed that the greatest influence in his life had been the work of directors Akira Kurosawa and Michael Powell. This might explain his direction of the film based in the novel by Georges Simenon's.
It shows a Tavernier more concerned with the character study of M. Descombes, as he goes through the horror of understanding what had caused his son to commit the crime of which he is been accused of perpetrating. In doing so, M. Tavernier embraces the "old French cinema", as he shuns away the New Wave methods of story telling.
One can see clearly what's going on in Descombes' mind, at all time. His son has grown up and is not a child anymore. We see this father come home and encounters newspaper reporters and he goes into his son's room and lays down in the bed that perhaps the younger man has not slept in for quite some time. We watch as Descombs descends into hell because he can't comprehend what has triggered his son into doing what seems repugnant to him and his dignity.
Pilippe Noiret was born to play Descombes. This actor with such subtlety, underplays the clockmaker, and the father. What comes to the surface is the inner turmoil that Descombes is experiencing. This is another example of how good an actor M. Noiret is because with an economy of gestures he builds the character. Jean Rochefort, as the inspector, is also good. M. Rochefort is another actor that always surprises.
This movie is a psychological portrait of a man at the crossroads of despair. Only at the end, father and son seem reconciled with one another. The city of Lyons has been photographed lovingly in this film.
This is a Tavernier for discriminating tastes.
It shows a Tavernier more concerned with the character study of M. Descombes, as he goes through the horror of understanding what had caused his son to commit the crime of which he is been accused of perpetrating. In doing so, M. Tavernier embraces the "old French cinema", as he shuns away the New Wave methods of story telling.
One can see clearly what's going on in Descombes' mind, at all time. His son has grown up and is not a child anymore. We see this father come home and encounters newspaper reporters and he goes into his son's room and lays down in the bed that perhaps the younger man has not slept in for quite some time. We watch as Descombs descends into hell because he can't comprehend what has triggered his son into doing what seems repugnant to him and his dignity.
Pilippe Noiret was born to play Descombes. This actor with such subtlety, underplays the clockmaker, and the father. What comes to the surface is the inner turmoil that Descombes is experiencing. This is another example of how good an actor M. Noiret is because with an economy of gestures he builds the character. Jean Rochefort, as the inspector, is also good. M. Rochefort is another actor that always surprises.
This movie is a psychological portrait of a man at the crossroads of despair. Only at the end, father and son seem reconciled with one another. The city of Lyons has been photographed lovingly in this film.
This is a Tavernier for discriminating tastes.
impressive movie both politic and emotional
Pehlevan2 September 2002
In spite of watching that movie for the sake of great director Bertrand Tavernier, I came across a purely eccentric and impressive masterpiece. Philipe Noiret ,my favorite actor in il Postino and Cinemo Paradiso, performs his boundary limits. Bertrand Tavernier's left glass a little ruins films from the political concern. However this does not reduce the total film quality. Tavernier's camera focuses on an ordinary widow clockmaker surrounding with the high tension political turmoil in Lyon early 1970s. Noiret's son is accused of a factory boss murder and runaway. Between police and his son, Noiret tries to find the real reason that led the murder. But this is a neither action nor criminal movie. Pure relationship between father and son is the core theme of the film. All things considered I strongly recommend this impressive and emotional movie for people to have some idea about the political atmosphere of early 1970s.
The combination of Philippe Noiret and Bertrand Tavernier, this time with Jean Rochefort, make for a movie worth watching
Terrell-413 September 2008
Warning: Spoilers
"Your son killed a man...We don't know why." The cause of the movie is the murder. The purpose of the movie is to look closely at Michel Descombes, the father. The Clockmaker (l'Horloger de Saint-Paul) is not a murder mystery. Were it not for the skills of Bertrand Tavernier and his frequent lead actor, Philippe Noiret, we might be in for a long, introspective slog full of what it means to be a solitary human being. With these two, and with Jean Rochefort as Inspector Guilboud, we have a movie that explores loneliness, friendship and, eventually, understanding with a good deal of depth and style.
Descombes is a self-contained man, friendly enough, probably what he thought of as a reasonably good parent, but not an especially happy man. "You're a widower?" a policeman asks. "No, not exactly," he says. "We were already separated. I guess I am a widower. I was just as miserable as one." Descombes struggles to understand his young son. Inspector Guilboud struggles to understand the son's motive, and then to understand the father. The more they learn, however, the more the fact of the matter stays the same; the son murdered a man. "I killed him because he was filth," Bernard Descombes eventually declares. Guilboud finds some empathy with Descombes. Even so, Descombes' son will be caught. "France is a funny country," Guilboud says. "Fifty-million inhabitants, twenty million informants." Descombes' son seems to represent more than just another murderer to Guilboud, a man with his own issues. He may see something of himself in Descombes. It is Descombes, however, who has to make the hardest journey, to try to understand who is son is.
The Clockmaker turns out to be one of the most interesting of the collaborations between Tavernier and Noiret, even with the now dull political subtext of complacent and suffocating French society. Still, the movie was made in 1974, an uneasy period. The movie finds itself, however, and the last twenty minutes are powerful minutes. "I stand by my son...in complete solidarity." Without Noiret, this movie would not have worked at all well, in my opinion. With Noiret and Rochefort, it works very well.
Other films by Tavernier and starring Noiret that I recommend with enthusiasm include Coup de Torchon - Criterion Collection (a marvelous black comedy), Revenge of the Musketeers and Life and Nothing But.
Descombes is a self-contained man, friendly enough, probably what he thought of as a reasonably good parent, but not an especially happy man. "You're a widower?" a policeman asks. "No, not exactly," he says. "We were already separated. I guess I am a widower. I was just as miserable as one." Descombes struggles to understand his young son. Inspector Guilboud struggles to understand the son's motive, and then to understand the father. The more they learn, however, the more the fact of the matter stays the same; the son murdered a man. "I killed him because he was filth," Bernard Descombes eventually declares. Guilboud finds some empathy with Descombes. Even so, Descombes' son will be caught. "France is a funny country," Guilboud says. "Fifty-million inhabitants, twenty million informants." Descombes' son seems to represent more than just another murderer to Guilboud, a man with his own issues. He may see something of himself in Descombes. It is Descombes, however, who has to make the hardest journey, to try to understand who is son is.
The Clockmaker turns out to be one of the most interesting of the collaborations between Tavernier and Noiret, even with the now dull political subtext of complacent and suffocating French society. Still, the movie was made in 1974, an uneasy period. The movie finds itself, however, and the last twenty minutes are powerful minutes. "I stand by my son...in complete solidarity." Without Noiret, this movie would not have worked at all well, in my opinion. With Noiret and Rochefort, it works very well.
Other films by Tavernier and starring Noiret that I recommend with enthusiasm include Coup de Torchon - Criterion Collection (a marvelous black comedy), Revenge of the Musketeers and Life and Nothing But.
Lyons is the star of the film
ieaun11 December 1999
The star of this film is the city of Lyons, which looks absolutely magnificent. The problem with the film is that it rambles along until the son is finally captured and tried, and is reconciled with his father. The father doesn't seem to know what's going on at the start or how he feels about his son, before eventually deciding that he wants him to escape. But the film just seems to drift from one encounter to another, with the policeman, with his friend, with the press, with his son's girlfriend's workmates, with the woman who helped bring his son up. Perhaps the director is trying to show what it's like to be waiting for news in such a situation and the sense of not being able to do anything about it. Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort are both excellent in portraying sympathetic characters. The son and girlfriend are also portrayed as sympathetic - although we are never explicitly told why they committed the murder, their victim is shown to have been a nasty piece of work. The almost documentary style is in contrast to the cinematic style of other Simenon adaptations such as "Monsieur Hire" and "The Hatter's Ghost". No intrusive music as in "Monsieur Hire" for example.
An homage du homme?
ThurstonHunger17 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Is this perhaps a study in masculinity, and not one dripping with testosterone? There is a distance between father and son, and yet at the same time an unbreakable bond.
The backdrop of the protests I think is very crucial, as is the final visit between father and son. We find out the two are linked by standing up to other men in authority, the son killing the (likely) rapist, the father "clocking" his commanding officer in WW2. In each case, the importance is the individual uprising set against a more sweeping national crisis.
Anyways the father tells his son his war story seemingly for the first time, in a movie where honoring silences speaks loudly. Vive old school masculine stoicism!? Not as valued these days it seems, but less can mean more, even if it comes with a longer prison sentence.
The backdrop of the protests I think is very crucial, as is the final visit between father and son. We find out the two are linked by standing up to other men in authority, the son killing the (likely) rapist, the father "clocking" his commanding officer in WW2. In each case, the importance is the individual uprising set against a more sweeping national crisis.
Anyways the father tells his son his war story seemingly for the first time, in a movie where honoring silences speaks loudly. Vive old school masculine stoicism!? Not as valued these days it seems, but less can mean more, even if it comes with a longer prison sentence.
Depressing humanist movie, deeply devasting !!
elo-equipamentos15 March 2020
It's an art movie, totally driven at a humanist point of view, a lonely widow Michel Descombes a watchmaker lives his placid life at Lyon, when receives a sad new from the police that his unique son committed a murder for his young girlfriend, both are at large, Le Commissaire Guilbold (Jean Rochfort) in charge on the inquiry see in the depressing humble man his blatant suffering, Michel tries get some answers diving at his past memories, when the young couple are arrested, Michel is request by Guilbold to meet his son at Paris, the boy refuses faces him due the shame inflicted at his father, the defence lawyer suggests a crime of passion to relief the sentence with mitigating factors to Michel shall convinces the boy, nevertheless his son denies such pleading, thus Michel finally resigns at son's will, arid and hard issue, not a crime movie, directed by Bertrand Tavernier who try exposes the degrading plight of a powerless father to help his son, having a laconic old Lyon as backdrop on many sequences the movie survives on a tightrope, deeply devasting!!
Resume:
First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / DVD / Rating: 8.5
Resume:
First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / DVD / Rating: 8.5
the movie must be commended for its originality
planktonrules13 July 2005
I did not love this movie, but it was better than average--particularly because of its originality. However, to an American audience, it may be difficult to relate to the French justice system circa 1974. At first, the star of the movie, Philippe Noiret, is a rather apolitical man who seems quite ordinary. When the police inform them that his son has murdered someone, he initially does pretty much what the police ask. When the investigating officer tries to get close to Philippe (sort of "buddy buddy"-like), he allows him. However, through the course of the film, Philippe begins to see the police as the enemy and he rebuffs these attempts by the police to be friendly. The problem for me is WHO is right? Were the police at this point of time quick to violate human rights or manipulate the families of the accused? I really didn't know if Philippe was having his eyes opened to the truth or if he just learned to identify with and excuse evil. This would NOT pose a problem to a French audience but for those not familiar with the French legal system it seemed confusing--was Philippe a good man or a good man going bad? As far as the acting and pacing is concerned, this is a good flick.
Professional and paradoxical.
alice liddell12 April 2000
L'HORLOGER is faultless. Based on a Simenon novel, it is a measured take on crime, not from the usual point of view of the criminal or the detective, but the waiting father, who must come to terms with his own past and deceptions as a parent.
In avoiding melodrama, the film follows a determinedly unsensational, grey, flat, mundane route. Tavernier rejected the flashiness of the nouvelle vague, in favour of older traditions of French cinema, with emphasis on character, and milieu, meaningful camera movements, and a literate, complex screenplay, while also linking cinematic tradition to his narrative of fathers and sons.
His recreation of Lyons is novel after a decade of Paris overkill, and you can feel the post-1968 political tension, the alarming shift to the right, and the straying of decent men into violence. Phillipe Noiret, one of Europe's greatest actors, is quietly astounding. Everything about the film is as good as it should be. So why, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, isn't it very interesting?
In avoiding melodrama, the film follows a determinedly unsensational, grey, flat, mundane route. Tavernier rejected the flashiness of the nouvelle vague, in favour of older traditions of French cinema, with emphasis on character, and milieu, meaningful camera movements, and a literate, complex screenplay, while also linking cinematic tradition to his narrative of fathers and sons.
His recreation of Lyons is novel after a decade of Paris overkill, and you can feel the post-1968 political tension, the alarming shift to the right, and the straying of decent men into violence. Phillipe Noiret, one of Europe's greatest actors, is quietly astounding. Everything about the film is as good as it should be. So why, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, isn't it very interesting?
A Father's Story
spoilsbury_toast_girl24 May 2007
The lonely, simple life of Michel Descombes (Philippe Noiret), a clockmaker who lost his wife years ago, changes when hears that his grown-up son murdered a man and is on the run with his girlfriend. Michel is shocked and questions his upbringing, while a nice police inspector (Jean Rochefort) shows much sympathy for him.
Tavernier's shining debut and co-operation with New Wave veterans Aurenche and Bost brings a novel by Simenon on screen. It's a work of old-fashioned concision that the mechanic of the title would have been more than proud of. It is more a psychological study than a crime drama, because there is next to no outer plot. The happenings are taking place in the head of Michel, the father, masterly played by Philippe Noiret, who suddenly gets confronted with the serious actions of his son. He becomes aware of how little he knows about him, although they used to be together all the time. The focus is less on the murderer nor on the victim, but more on what the catastrophe means for the father of the committer, in a powerful work of authenticity.
Tavernier's shining debut and co-operation with New Wave veterans Aurenche and Bost brings a novel by Simenon on screen. It's a work of old-fashioned concision that the mechanic of the title would have been more than proud of. It is more a psychological study than a crime drama, because there is next to no outer plot. The happenings are taking place in the head of Michel, the father, masterly played by Philippe Noiret, who suddenly gets confronted with the serious actions of his son. He becomes aware of how little he knows about him, although they used to be together all the time. The focus is less on the murderer nor on the victim, but more on what the catastrophe means for the father of the committer, in a powerful work of authenticity.
i agree with one of the commentators that Lyon is the star of the film
didiermustntdie13 April 2007
i like the smell of the street of Lyon , I like the small towns of France's 70's ,that's why i also like Montpelier in"deux hommes dans la ville" ..Cécile Vassort who was in both movies is a perfect small town girl for me tavernier who was appointed as the director of this film apparently was influenced by his teacher jean Pierre Melville who also had a great sense of cities's street , the difference is Melville prefers big cities, Paris, marseille, new york , Chicago, etc. when Melville smells the dark crime of big cities, tavernier smells the fresh life of small towns ,another difference if you ask me...
here i also want to mention another director Pierre granier deferre who usually smells very small villages instead of cities or towns. so he made decent fils , such as Veuve Couderc, La (1971) Horse, La (1970) Fils, Le (1973)
here i also want to mention another director Pierre granier deferre who usually smells very small villages instead of cities or towns. so he made decent fils , such as Veuve Couderc, La (1971) Horse, La (1970) Fils, Le (1973)
Did he or didn't he and does it really matter?
jrneptune30 June 2021
I agree with most of the review done by realreel except for one point.
I did not see definitve evidence of who the killer was. Nor even what actually provoked the killing. However, I totally agree that is also not the point of the movie it is how the crime has touched other people that is the point.
Having only recently discovered works of the director, Bertrand Tavernier, and I am truly amazed by the movies he has created and now a big fan as well. I would also point out that many European movies have not been tainted by Hollywood's big buget happy ending style movies and tend to make more realistic movies about life.
Just tossing in my one thought. It is a movie everyone should get to see at least once.
I did not see definitve evidence of who the killer was. Nor even what actually provoked the killing. However, I totally agree that is also not the point of the movie it is how the crime has touched other people that is the point.
Having only recently discovered works of the director, Bertrand Tavernier, and I am truly amazed by the movies he has created and now a big fan as well. I would also point out that many European movies have not been tainted by Hollywood's big buget happy ending style movies and tend to make more realistic movies about life.
Just tossing in my one thought. It is a movie everyone should get to see at least once.
Noiret is finest actor of his generation
taylor988510 August 2001
Based on a Simenon novel (and probably much finer artistically than the source), this film reposes mainly on ths sturdy shoulders of Philippe Noiret, who is magnificent as a middle-aged tradesman who is trying to come to terms with the fact his son has killed a man. He tries to keep a level head as the political-media frenzy explodes all around him; a very hard thing to do in France, where the political affiliations of killer and victim are endlessly discussed in every cafe, every home.
Jean Rochefort plays the inspector, a frustrated idealist turned sour by the realization that he has found his level in the justice system and will not rise above it. The wary relationship between cop and father is the basis of the film--the son sppears only in the brief scene on the plane, a masterpiece of emotional restraint.
Jean Rochefort plays the inspector, a frustrated idealist turned sour by the realization that he has found his level in the justice system and will not rise above it. The wary relationship between cop and father is the basis of the film--the son sppears only in the brief scene on the plane, a masterpiece of emotional restraint.
the emotion
Kirpianuscus20 August 2017
it is the basic point defining this special drama. the root - admirable performance of Philippe Noiret. and the case of a deep solitude. defining the fall in near reality. a film for reflect. about parenthood and about the pain as refuge. about the shock changing everything. about the truth. and the post words. and, sure, about the peace with yourself. as the only reasonable answer to old fears and certitudes.
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