O Declínio dos Homens

As a massive fan of Jacques Audiard's work in the past decade, I was eager to check out his first directorial effort, See How They Fall. It wasn't a bad film by any means, but I have to admit I was disappointed. Co-written with his frequent collaborator Alain Le Henry, based on a novel by Teri White, it tells the story of Simon (Jean Yanne), a business-card salesman who hunts down the men that shoot his cop friend Mickey. It's a far-fetched concept, this mild-mannered schlub suddenly deciding to become a pulp investigator, but the black comedy tone that Audiard gives the film make it so that a stretch of the imagination isn't hard for the audience to conjure up.

Still, the story splits it's time between Simon and the homeless wandering duo of Marx and Johnny (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Mathieu Kassovitz), which is one of the few mistakes that it makes. There's a lack of balance in how compelling these men are, and whenever we were spending time with Simon I found myself just wanting to see more of Marx and Johnny. The two of them set up an interesting dynamic, with Marx being the grizzled old drifter who just wants to be alone and is only looking out for himself, while Johnny is the dim-witted lad with a heart of gold who takes a shine to Marx and will do anything for him. That relationship should have been the focal point of the film, but instead we spend the majority of our time with Simon on trying to track them down, a journey that isn't particularly engaging or memorable.

Audiard has worked in the crime genre for his entire career, but in the past decade with the films Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, he has evolved the field in a way that few others have done before. He's orchestrated fully realized worlds around deep, complex characters who walk a fine line of moral ambiguity, all conducted with his key eye for a gripping aesthetic style. See How They Fall isn't a bad film, but it's stripped of all the things that make Audiard one of the best filmmakers we have in modern cinema. The characters are quite thin for the large majority of the picture, only getting slight hints towards more layers but never being full developed, and the film is stylistically flat, despite it's best efforts. It doesn't have emotional resonance of Read My Lips, the thematic power of The Beat That My Heart Skipped or the scope of A Prophet.

There's an attempt to give it the kind of whip-flash editing structure that a lot of these independent crime films were accustomed to in the '90s, but it never really lands as strongly as some of them were able to accomplish. It's a fun little movie, with fine acting by the young Kassovitz and the veteran Trintignant, but overall there really isn't anything to set it apart and leave an impression. It's a pedestrian affair, but a mildly interesting first effort from the man who would evolve into the best crime filmmaker of the modern era.

I just watched this last night, having been very intrigued by Audiard's other works, esp.the brilliant and somewhat indescribable Read My Lips. See How They Fall was indeed one of the more unusual stories I have seen in film. While the story has 4 main characters, it is the two most unassuming characters that anchor and propel the film. One is an over-the-hill depressive teddy bear of a salesman, Yanne. The other is a mentally slow/mentally challenged grown up child, Kassovitz. The former is searching for his only friend's killer; the latter is a puppy dog follower of a seedy petty criminal, Trintignant. (I've never seen Tr. in this kind of role. He is extremely convincing and completely revolting.) Most of the film builds the back story and follows the lives of the 2 pairs of friends. There are certainly elements of Midnight Cowboy and Of Mice and Men, but I was very pleased to see that the stories have many unexpected elements, mostly to do with Yanne, as he gradually leaves behind everything familiar to him and 'becomes' the quest to find his friend's killer. He moves obsequiously and with ease through worlds completely foreign to him, and the viewer's empathy is gradually drawn into the essence of who he is. One completely believes that he is who he is playing, and the same is true of Trintignant and Kassovitz.

The film's resolution occurs close to the end, when the 2 stories intersect. Before this, the film would have been greatly improved if 30% of it had been edited out, but the film's resolution is quick and perfect, like a gentle but effective 1-2 punch. In both Read My Lips and See How They Fall, Audiard shows a very unique way with unusual characters and their just-as-unusual stories. Both films are relatively quiet and contemplative, and the many silences lull the viewer into a distinct internal rhythm. Long after the films have ended, this rhythm stays on.

I have a deep relationship with this film, which I discovered when it was released in 1994, and which for me, embodies and represents France better than any other film. It's something intangible, which resides in the realistic settings and the often very funny dialogues. 'See How They Fall', THIS IS France. Watching it again today for the umpteenth time, I am still impressed by its intoxicating visual, sound and narrative virtuosity, almost out of place for a debut film. Everything comes together perfectly: a scenario expertly exploiting two different temporal narrative lines before bringing them together, elaborated staging/editing effects, dialogues subtly playing on repetition, prodigious actor performances (Trintignant, Yanne , Kassovitz...), the music of Alexandre Desplat in tune with all this... An absolute miracle of a film by an almost reluctant filmmaker.

This noir character study uses the plot only as a vehicle to explore its protagonists' world. Although it's an honest attempt and the actors do very well (Trintignant is a personal favorite anyway), the pace is too slow and tiring and the lack of action sometimes becomes evident. Sometimes words cannot generate interest by themselves.

This film is full of interesting ideas. Some scenes are truly hilarious. The dialogs are witty and colloquial. The tension in the film comes not so much from the 'murder mystery' plot as from the relationship between the characters. The film tells two stories in parallel.

The first story involves the characters played by Trintignant and Kassovitz. Trintignant is an ageing drifter, with a somewhat ridiculous macho toughness, who is followed by a naive young man played by Kassovitz with plenty of good-natured smiles. Many good moments in the film come from the contrast between the two characters, for example when Trintignant tries to teach Kassovitz how to be intimidating.

The second story tells how a salesman,played by Jean Yanne, gives up his job and his wife to find the murderer of a young friend. Yanne plays the part with a kind of aggressive irony. I wish I could describe this better.

After a while the viewer understands how both stories are connected and they meet indeed in the end, in a surprising but also logical ending.

The film is a successful mixture of the witty but superficial gangster films the director's father (the celebrated Michel Audiard) used to write, and the "typical french film" with lots of psychological depth and lots of care in the display of emotions.