Le Vieux Fusil

Raw, tragic, and incredibly poetic, a direct blow to the heart. A low-budget film that masterfully plays all the best cinematic cards and reaches a supremely lyrical level. A masterful performance by an exceptional cast, portraying well-constructed roles and using montages built through continuous flashbacks that skillfully blend highly dramatic moments with poetic ones. Memory, recollection, personal experiences of an ordinary citizen who takes revenge into his own hands.

The protagonist, far from being painted as a heroic and superhuman Rambo (Stallone's "Rambo" film would come only 8 years later, undoubtedly drawing from this), is an everyday man in an extraordinary situation overwhelmed by events.

A microhistory, like many untold ones, that reminds us of the horrors of wars and the power of love that can overcome even in a tragic way. A tragicomedy, like Greek tragedies can be, with an ending that is not happy but somehow comforting. It makes us love the character in all his tragicness and it makes us accompany him, on the dark side of revenge.