Trois huit

A cross between "la meilleure façon de marcher" and " ladri di biciclette"?Perhaps so..

In 1976,Claude Miller made "la meilleure façon de marcher" ,his best movie,where he pitted a romantic shy young man (Patrick Bouchitey)against a strong vulgar macho (the late Patrick Deweare) in the "no exit" of a holiday camp;Here ,Le Guay shows two men in an unusual environment:movies which take place in a factory are very rare.A worker,a loudmouth,treats one of his colleagues as a punching ball when he discovers he's not fond of putting pictures of naked women on the door of his locker :blowing hot and cold,sometimes he bullies and humiliates him,and sometimes he pretends to be his pal.LIttle by little ,the victim ,who is a "normal" human being,begins to think he's "different" and does not know where he stands anymore.But we soon discover that the "villain" is not exactly the self-confident brute he seems to be.The tension between the two men rises ,since...

his son ,after an incident after a basketball game ,finds out what happens to his father:he feels humiliated,and the father does not want to explain anything to him(the connection with "ladri di biciclette"). And the adolescent begins to grow away from him,fascinated by this he-man,who does body building....

"Trois huit" is a very interesting French film.It could have been an inane slapstick comedy ,it's a subtle intimate drama which I recommend.