Monsieur Hire

Solid and perfectly paced camera work and direction, players of exquisite talent and nuance, make this Simenon novel a powerful film . The winsomeness and cunning of Bonnaire, one of France's great actresses as the love object; the fanatic and unsettling calm conviction of the police detective played by Andre Wilms; the furtiveness, loneliness, and longing of the brilliant Michel Blanc; and the cowardliness and thugness of Thullier, a man made to play the thug, combine to make both a believable tale and a great metaphor for our need for "the other." The Brahms loop in the vital scenes of longing are a masterful touch. A work of great competence, sensitivity, and truth. What is essential in the novel but too subtly hinted at in the film, is anti-semitism only suggested by the revealing of M. Hire's original family name in questioning by the detective. A truly great film.