Tuer un homme

Some foreign films play well with US audiences. This one doesn't. In the US, this film is a comedy. US audiences would laugh raucously at the sheer absurdity of it. A criminal gets shot committing a crime, he dies, and people care. See, it's funny already.

Why did the jeweler shoot twice? Why, indeed. In the US, he'd have emptied the gun into the guy. The movie would have been called "Ten Bullets." Why did he shoot the guy in the lower abdomen? Maybe he was a lousy shot. In the US, he's have aimed for center mass and kept firing until the robber was dead on the floor.

Why does everyone freak out? In the US, people would line up to get the jeweler's autograph. He'd do TV and radio interviews. He'd have his own youtube channel. He'd be a hero. His daughter would idolize him. His wife would swoon over him.

The people who mourn over the criminal? They'd be laughed at, scorned, ridiculed. Nothing about this film makes a lick of sense to the US sensibility. Here, the shooter is a hero, the robber is a scumbag who deserved what he got. The end. The screenplay would never have been written here.

This is a story inspired from actual evenys which happened in France a couple of years ago. A jewellery store owner killed an armed robber in self defense and then was condemned. This Tv film is very well made and acted. It is a social drama and studying characters in a very accurate manner. How people behave in certain circumstances. Not to see if you are in a depressed mood.

So I know this could have touched on more subjects and it leaves certain things up to the viewer to ... well make out where it goes. But the inciting incident is a robbery ... or rather what happens at that said attempted robbery. It is not easy to know what goes on in ones head ... but the movie comes close to get us to that place, to that mindset - and some may even say they can say what is what.

Now the aftermath is actually what counts. And while our main character has quite a few flaws, you still feel for him. It is really important that the role is being played by a really good actor. The wife may have a lot of moments that make you ... not like her .. but that is life! Stuff happens and everyone reacts differently to it. Again, not easy to really know what goes on in anyones head ... but the movie comes as close to it as it can. Well done and while it still is rough on the edges ... it works its magic.

The spirit of André Cayatte ,a director too often unfairly dismissed by the highbrows, is still living on...

"Tuer un homme" broaches the subject of self-defence with a great sense of decency ; the now de rigueur brilliant lawyer takes a back seat to the tragedy of the accused person; and it avoids the main danger: to find the hero's case taken over par extremists ,the far right ;it's only hinted at ,with the rugby coach and the posters of an election near the supermarket.

"Tuer un homme" is pure psychological drama: where are the limits of self-defence? Why shoot twice? Do you react to fear ..or to a fit of anger? Although supported by the public opinion, the unfortunate hero ,a self-made man who struggles hard all his life to own his jeweller store ,who's been burglarized twice , is more and more bewildered :"They treat me like a criminal!" His robber was only 23, just a kid, agonies of remorse begin to spoil his life:a good citizen ,a good father and a good husband, he sees his wife (whose life he thought he had saved ,but a revelation calls everything into question) turn away from him ,his daughter and his son have their doubts .

The victim 's side is not passed over in silence : some people have put a makeshift memorial with photographs ,flowers and candles (the daughter's attitude has completely changed in the last sequence) ; one sees glimpses of the life of these underdogs in their HLM (public housing project/council housing estate)where one can hear a baby wail;and one comprehends the violence of the widow's words whose toddler " will never know his dad" .

Well acted ,particularly by both principals ;panoramic shots come back to show an apparently nice town in the south of France .

In one of his most famous classic ,"justice est faite" (1950) ,André Cayatte ended his film with a question mark ."Tuer un homme" ,although life goes one apparently peacefully, leaves us with many questions which remain unanswered.