Bellamy

Unlike in most frantic American crime stories, France's Inspector Bellamy leisurely rambles about its characters as if they were the story, not the crime. And indeed they are: Inspector Paul Bellamy (Gerard Depardieu) is as uncomfortable with the crime subject's different personas as he is with his own past, most notably with his half-brother, Jacques Lebas (Clovie Cornillac), who shows up to renew their sibling rivalry.

"French Hitchcock" director Claude Chabrol selects each shot for its maximum information, frequently illuminating more than one character, more than one motive. For the French, the highest incentive for crime or a happy life seems to be love, and Chabrol explores the various twists infidelity and family can toss into the crime solving mix. True to his New Wave roots, Chabrol lards each image with meaning while couching the story in a languid realism, less edgy now than years ago, but still full of life's ironies while life is lived out in an almost mundane fashion.

More interesting than the multiple personalities of the suspect is the intimate dance of the hero, Bellamy, and his attractive wife, Francoise (Marie Bunel), who provides him with intellectual companionship, sexual longing, and a bit of jealousy for good measure. The lovely chemistry between Depardieu and Bunel reminds me of how authentic a good character study like this can be in the hands of a master director. While Depardieu has developed a belly beyond reason, he still delivers the emotional goods, just as retired Inspector Bellamy can successfully solve a crime.

Imagine all this richness without discernible CGI. For good reason: The emphasis is on the husband-wife relationship, not the crime. So it is in most European cinema, or at least it seems that way to an American critic who has seen enough of his country's gadget-centered films.

In Nimes, Inspector Paul Bellamy (Gérard Depardieu) is spending vacation with his wife Françoise Bellamy (Marie Bunel), who wants to travel. When a stranger unexpectedly arrives at his house, he gives his cellphone number to Françoise. The workaholic Bellamy contacts the man and learns that he is the insurance agent Emile Leullet (Jacques Gamblin), who attempt to fraud the insurance company faking his death in a car accident. He intended to use the insurance money to leave his wife and flee with his mistress Nadia Sancho (Vahina Giocante) with a new face got through plastic surgery and the alias Noël Gentil. He says that the charred body found in the car is from the homeless Denis Leprince that wanted to die and hijacked his car in a nearby restaurant. Meanwhile, Bellamy's half-brother Jacques Lebas (Clovis Cornillac), who is an alcoholic loser and crook, comes to their house and stays there, Bellamy spends his time discussing with Jacques, socializing with Françoise her gay dentist and his friend, and interviewing Leulett, his wife Mrs, Leulett, his mistress and Leprince's former girlfriend.

"Bellamy" (2009) is a dull movie by Claude Chabrol about the vacation of the efficient Inspector Bellamy. When a stranger asks for help from him, he cannot resist and spends his time investigating the case. His alcoholic half-brother arrives at home, his vacations are fulfilled by problems and traumas from their childhood. The plot is only reasonable, despite the good acting, but the swam song of the great Claude Chabrol deserved a better movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Bellamy"

Claude Chabrol (24 June 1930 - 12 September 2010) was one of the French mainstream New Wave film directors, celebrated for his suspense thrillers. BELLAMY is his last film and as such will probably remain one of his more fascinating. he was able to take what appeared on the surface to be rather mundane characters and story threads and twist them and turn them into fascinating tales. This trait is very evident in the mesmerizing, seemingly off the cuff film BELLAMY which holds our attention in a friendly conversational kind of way and then turns the tables at the end, leaving the viewer with the question 'why didn't I see that coming?'

Famous Parisian Inspector Paul Bellamy (Gérard Depardieu) and his wife Françoise (Marie Bunel) are enjoying their vacation in Françoise's childhood home in Nîmes, France when they notice a stalker. The stalker calls Bellamy to meet him: Noël Gentil (Jacques Gambin) confesses a murder he has committed and for some reason captures the attention of Bellamy. The 'murder' is an insurance scheme in which Noël staged his own death using a proxy in order to get his wife's life insurance money allowing him to run away with his girlfriend Nadia Sancho (Vahina Giocante). 'Noël Gentil' is actually Emile Leullet married to Madame Leullet (Adrienne Pauly) but after the staged car-over-the-cliff accident, a car supposedly containing a street person Denis Leprince - also played by Gambin, the scam is squelched by the insurance company's investigation. Bellamy covers every lead into this strange situation and it ends with a surprise death that alters the entire scam.

Meanwhile Bellamy's restless and resentful brother Jacques (Clovis Cornillac), an ex-con who still manages to steal from friends and puts the blame on his brother, visits Bellamy and his wife, and causes disruptions in their personal life as well as bringing Bellamy to a point of facing secrets about his childhood he has hidden from the world, secrets about his brother that are resolved in a very bizarre manner. All of these facts are ingredients for a thriller of a movie, but Chabrol's technique is to treat the harsh realities of the story as mere chatty conversations. All is not as it seems and behind every thread of this episodically related story are other stories that need the viewer's concentration to resolve.

The cast is strong and the jewel of the film is the performance by Marie Bunel as the loving, affectionate, older wife. She glows. It is sad that Claude Chabrol is gone, but his fine movies are a legacy that makes him immortal.

Grady Harp

Chabrol is 78, and this is his 57th film. He's in fine form here, though this hasn't quite got the delirious malice or the cloying bourgeois atmosphere of his most potent works. The closing dedication is to "the two Georges." They are Georges Brassens, the French singer-songwriter, and Georges Simenon, the prolific Belgian-born maker of novels hard and soft and the creator of the inimitable Commissioner Maigret. This is the first time Chabrol and Gérard Depardieu have worked together. For the occasion, Chabrol has conceived a lead character who's half Maigret, half Depardieu. And he has based his crime plot on a news item. The ingredients blend well and the result is guaranteed to entertain.

There is an actual Maigret novel in which the Paris detective goes on vacation with his wife, but then becomes involved in a case. ('Les Vacances de Maigret'--and it was made into a film!) It's a foregone conclusion that Maigret, and Chabrol's Commissioner Paul Bellamyworki (Depardieu) is no different, is happiest when he's solving a murder mystery. Bellamy spends every summer with his wife Françoise (Marie Bunel) in the region of Nimes, in the south of France, where she maintains a cozy bourgeois family house. She would prefer they join a cruise on the Nile, where Bellamy would be less able to get his nose into French crime, but here they are. And as the film begins and Maigret, I mean Bellamy, is doing a crossword and Françoise is planning dinner and shopping, a suspicious-looking lean sort of fellow called Noël Gentil (Jacques Gamblin) is hovering around in the garden just outside the picture window, and finally gets up his courage and raps on the front door. Bellamy has written a well known memoir and like Maigret is so famous people seek him out.

Mme. Bellamy turns the man away, but there's a phone call, and Bellamy goes to a motel room, and he finds this chap interesting because people interest him. Gentil turns out to have several aliases, and even faces, because he's sought the help of a plastic surgeon. He shows the photo of a man who looks rather like himself and says he "sort of killed him." He declares himself to be in a terrible mess. There are several women, a wife (Marie Matheron) and a beautiful young woman who has a beauty shop (Vahina Giocante) in the town. And, as in the Simenon novel, there is a local police inspector, a certain Leblanc, whom Bellamy doesn't respect, and assiduously avoids, and Chabrol never shows us on screen.

M. Gentil turns out to be a suspect involved in a double life and a devious crime. But he is seeking the Commissioner's help--on a private basis. It has to do with an insurance scam that went awry.

Chabrol is also involved in a double process, because the film takes a complicated family turn with the arrival of Bellamy's ne'er-do-well half-brother Jacques Lebas (Clovis Cornillac), who gambles, drinks too much, and has a habit of going off with things that don't belong to him. Cornillac wears this character's skin so comfortably he never seems to be acting, and with a part like this, that's a neat trick, and he makes Jacques somehow elegant as well.

Part of the charm of this easy-to-watch if unchallenging film is the warm relationship between Françoise and Bellamy, which is romantic and affectionate and physical and cozy all at once. Bunel and Depardieu (who is very large now, a benignly beached whale in a good suit) play very well together. There is a dinner with a gay dentist (Yves Verhoeven) and his partner, which Jacques horns in on; this isn't terribly interesting. Nor is the case extremely resonant. The most memorable moments are those between Bellamy and his wife and his love-hate squabbling with the unpredictable half-brother, which are enhanced by the bright colors and warmth of the southern French setting. There is a young lawyer who shines in court, and lines from a Georges Brassens song are used in a surprising way. Fans of Chabrol and of Depardieu (and the two Georges!) won't want to miss this.

Bellamy opened in Paris February 25, 2009 to decent reviews. Given its north American premiere at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center in March 2009, this seems sure to get a US distributor, but none has been announced yet.

I only found later that the movie was greatly inspired in Simenon's detective. Indeed the simplicity, unclear methods and distracted although focused attitudes corresponds to Maigret in great detail. The main difference is Depardieu's tender relationship with his wife, completely absent in the novel. Another difference, Bellamy's brother is maybe a weak point.

Major criticism refers to the lack of deepness of the characters and the plain performance of Depardieu. It did not affect me at all. The movie is light, intriguing and pictures nicely some aspects of French lifestyle. It was a pleasure to see Nimes and a joyful Maigret on the screen.