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Reviews
Le pacha (1968)
Not superb, but with some excellent scenes
While the story is pretty run-of-the-mill detective stuff, there are some bits of cinematography that I found stunning: Léon's car sinking in the pond while Brigitte Bardot sings "Harley Davidson", the odd meeting between Quinquin and Nathalie in the very cool JNS3 shop, Quinquin's elimination of his co-conspirators at the farm, the details of the original heist that starts everything off. The police offices are surreally cool and modern, stuffed with (for the time) ultra-high technology.
It's really not Gabin's best performance by a long shot; another reviewer amusingly mentions him "waddling in." He seems tired and like he's just phoning it in. I disagreed that Dany Carrel couldn't act; I thought she was pretty good (and really beautiful). André Pousse (Quinquin) was very effective as a ruthless murderer.
It was fun to see Gainsbourg and his nicotine-stained fingers in the studio. The music was used to pretty good effect through the movie -- perhaps most strikingly, as I noted above, when Quinquin takes care of Léon at the pond.
Two touches that amused me: Gabin's character was named Joss, which presages Joss Beaumont in Le Professional (1981), another Lautner/Audiard collaboration. More subtle: the railway station chief at Troyes speaks with a pronounced stutter; Troyes is best known for the coronation of Louis the Stammerer in 878.
I also got a kick out of it since it was filmed the year I was born, and the world then looks so different from the way it does now.
Scent of a Woman (1992)
The worst that American cinema has to offer.
One of the worst films of the last ten years. It's an exercise in maudlin sentimentality that made me walk out of the theater with my jaw dragging on the ground.