User reviews

Probably the best film i never intend to watch again. This film is absolutely stressing, every minute of it is stressing. Nothing good ever happens, i cringe at every decision the lead ever made and the overall atmosphere is that of absolute claustrophobia. Everyone absolutely sucks in this film ( the character, not the actors), they are violent, selfish , mean spirited and cruel, with the exception of Mona which is portrayed as sort of a Venus at the same time as a saint. I thought her portrayal was a bit problematic since we get the idea that if you refuse to essentially take advantage out of someone , then this someone is immediately in debt with you. It also bothered me how the film makes you like her and root for her best and at the same time gives us a lead that sells her short in every chance he ever gets. Anyways, the film was good it's just a little bit too depressing for me, i got to say though that i was happy that it had a sort of a happy ending, i mean things probably went pretty badly for the characters after the end but i'm just grateful that the film chose not to show that.

I seem to be on something of an Alain Corneau binge, somewhat by accident. (These films were all recently added to kanopy...) Corneau is certainly not a one-trick pony, as his work spans an incredible range. This creation offers the ultimate noir de noir: super dark, bleak, depressing, yet somehow compelling at the same time. Quite well constructed and reminiscent in some ways of both the Coen brothers and Lina Wertmuller... I would not, however, characterize this film as a comedy. A bit too dark for that...

For this viewer at any rate the only two film versions of his novels that have captured the bleakness of Jim Thompson's world vision have been directed by Frenchmen.

Alain Corneau had hoped to film 'Cop 1280' but that was to be done two years later by Tavernier as 'Coup de Torchon' so Corneau and writer Georges Perec set about the task of adapting Thompson's 'A hell of a Woman' and transposing the setting from '50's America to 70's France.

The cinematographer on both films is Pierre-William Glenn.

Described by one critic as 'an excursion into Hell' this unutterably seedy, squalid, desolate, depressing, misanthropic and one would have to say, mesmerising piece, did not fare too well when first released but has since acquired cult status, mainly due to Patrick Dewaere's electrifying performance as the deranged Franck Poupart.

By all accounts Corneau would only consider Dewaere for the role and one can fully understand why. This talented actor was evidently a troubled soul whose inner darkness makes his portrayal terrifyingly real and one shudders to think just how much this performance must have taken out of him.

There are two women in Franck's life, his unpredictable wife Jeanne played by Myriam Boyer and the autistic prostitute Mona of Marie Trintignant whose mother Nadine happened to be Dewaere's partner at the time. Marie was sixteen and one wonders how her mother, or indeed her father Jean-Louis, felt about her first scene in which she bares all. Corneau later commented that working on this uncompromisingly adult film may have left its mark on her. Bertolucci said the same thing about Maria Schneider in 'Last Tango in Paris' but of course it is easy for a director to be sympathetic in hindsight.

Excellent performances from a small but select cast notably Bernard Blier whose son Bertrand had already directed Dewaere in two films.

The title 'Série Noire' is especially apt as it was the name of the publishing imprint which introduced Thompson's hard boiled works to French readers. It also loosely translates as 'run of bad luck' which in the case of Poupart is something of an understatement.

This film is not an easy watch but is essential viewing for all true cinéphiles and ranks as one of Corneau's finest. It is even more poignant in light of the tragic fate that befell both Patrick Dewaere and Marie Trintignant.

It seems appropriate here to mention that Jean-Louis Trintignant, one of France's greatest post-War actors, shuffled off this mortal coil in June of this year.

Jim Thompson wrote dark thrillers that were turned into some superb films (The Getaway-Peckinpah, 1972; Pop. 1280, as Coup de torchon-Tavernier, 1981; The Grifters-Frears, 1990). In 1979, Alain Corneau took A Hell of a Woman and made Serie noire, one of the most remarkable French crime films. The tone is very bleak, and there is a strong element of surrealistic humor. Georges Perec co wrote the script and he contributed many nonsense words and phrases to Frank Poupart's role

Frank is a small time salesman in a Paris industrial suburb who supplements his meager earnings by stealing from his boss, Staplin. The latter has Frank tossed in jail, whereupon Mona, the seventeen-year-old girl Frank's fallen for, pays Staplin to have Frank released. Mona's aunt, who has been prostituting the girl to the neighbourhood men, now becomes a tempting target for robbery.

Marie Trintignant has made five pictures with Corneau; she has a dark, brooding quality (big black eyes) that is perfectly suited to this story. She plays the part of guardian-angel-cum-slut wonderfully. Bernard Blier is Staplin, the oily, dishonest boss to a T. Andreas Katsulas has a ball with his character, a guy so dumb you don't know how he functions in this world. Patrick Dewaere, who was to kill himself only three years after making the film, is astonishing as Poupart. Just look at the desperation behind the cool exterior, the wild things he does--smashing his head against the hood of his car, or almost drowning in the bathtub. There is a savagery about his work that you don't find in other French actors.

One of the most original film experiences of the 70s is certainly French. Série noire is distinctive in its narrative and the form is never overwhelming the content.

Although most of it seems improvised, it is always surprising to learn that all of it was written down to the last word by Perec.

The most fascinating aspect of this movie is the angle of "harsh realism" that Corneau chose to tell the story. No external music is polluting the grimy atmosphere depicted with true to life colors and textures. And yet, it is one of the most romantic movie - in the purest form of the genre - that one can wish for.

And how can anyone not be touched by the late Patrick Deweare acting. It has been said that this movie took such a toll on the actor that some are almost suggesting that it was the starting point of his depressive state. It is truly a very moving, strong performance, full of surprise and nuance, almost so strong that it is unbearable to watch.

For those who are searching for a new kind of film making and acting, Série noire is certainly one of the best movies to provide such an experience.

This is the second Jim Thompson adaptation I review here and it's purely coincidental. I really must love Thompson's style. I wasn't expected a masterpiece when I bought Série Noire in DVD, tho. I've always been fond of the late Patrick Dewaere, I think he is one of the best French actors ever, and I like Corneau's cinema, but Série Noire was unexpected and it is indeed extraordinary. It's daring, tense and plunged into harsh realism. It's the kind of film that stays with you once you've finished watching it. It shows how easy it is to lose control when society becomes a weight on personal identity. Série Noire is a different kind of Film Noir and probably the best French crime film among Le cercle rouge and Du Rififi chez les hommes. It has a ton of black humor and a bleak atmosphere. Corneau shoots Paris as if it was itself a character, a gloomy, grey and ruthless antagonist. The sordid locations and the moisty dirty apartments where the action takes place give a really weird and nightmarish mood to the film. The social pressure which the character is subject is huge and unbearable; it literally toys with him until he breaks. Patrick Dewaere shines like in no other films, he's brilliant as the neurotic looser who gets wrapped into this tragic vortex after the killing of an old woman. His downfall somehow reminded me of the dizzying Richard Widmark's runaway in Night and the city. Georges Perec's dialogues are just great, very similar to Michel Audiard or Bertrand Blier's style. The cast is perfect. Bernard Blier is excellent as usual and Marie Trintignant is mysterious and sensual. If you like 70's French crime films, you have to watch it, this is one of the best.

Alain Corneau is part of the fixture in French cinema and delivered highly estimable pieces of work throughout his career. Hence the diversity of the genres he explored either it is the adventure film with "Nocturne Indien" (1989), probably his finest hour or the detective film with "Police Python 357" (1976) or "la Menace" (1977). Nominated for the Golden Palm in Cannes in 1979 and for several French Ocsars the following year, "Série Noire" is generally regarded as the filmmaker's peak as far as detective film is concerned. I don't share this enthusiasm at all.

True, Corneau hired the services of two of the greatest Actors, France has ever had: Patrick Dewaere and Bernard Blier shine in their respective acting and one can't say who is the grimmest of the two. They evolve in dreary scenery rightly enhanced by a somber cinematography to confer the film a depressing atmosphere. Corneau shot his film on a shoestring budget and a reduced crew to better involve emotionally the audience.

However, I'm not convinced at all by Dewaere's downward spiral who contemplates to steal the old lady's loot. Corneau doesn't leave enough clues likely to shed his demeanor and his motivations to do it. Then, if Corneau wished to highlight his tragical fate, he partly failed. The fact that Dewaere is trapped in a vicious circle because he is a victim of fatality leaves me deeply unimpressed. Mainly because once again Corneau doesn't make it obvious on the screen. And I found Marie Trintignant's lifeless acting more irritating than gripping.

So what remains are indisputable assets such as the acting and the choice of scenery but that's all. Definitely not the Corneau to which I would return.

IMDb synopsis says that Franck Poupart, played by Patrick Dewaere, is 'slightly neurotic'. It's actually much worse, Poupart is a complete maniac, left unsupervised in a jungle of HLM, terrains vagues, poverty and filth. He even readily mumbles to himself that he's psychotic.

I heard of Série noire when looking up Dewaere bio on wikipedia. It was mentioned how physically hard the filming was on the actors, and on Dewaere in particular. The characters keep fighting and shouting at each other, and they won't stop until they're completely exhausted or drunk. Except of course for Blier, who plays the soft spoken treacherous coward. I found this movie very close in spirit to Zola who would place weak personalities in a closed environment to sadistically observe what happens. Everyone is to blame for what happens, everyone is guilty.

This is a true chef d'œuvre, but a disturbing one, the kind of movie you'll be thinking of for days to come. It's all about madness, and you'll wonder how far you are from falling into it.

This is a fascinating movie; like I have rarely seen before.

From the beginning, dancing with imaginary situations and people in a deserted dreary suburb of Paris, it is simply captivating. It starts kind of bleak, until it develops into hell. And it is not the physical side. It is the psychological angle that glues us to the screen.

A kind of almost sympathetic young man, struggling with a very 'messy' partner, having to fulfill the expectations of his boss, seemingly showing sympathy for his brethren. And somehow, on a very slippery slope, we understand that all is play. He is a psychopath, nothing less.

Okay, his environs don't make it easy for him, just to the contrary, but he slips much faster down the slope and into serious crime, including murder, only to a achieve a mediocre result. And the longer the film runs, the more we learn that Bernard Blier describes him perfectly well as someone who has a stone where others have a heart.

In short, within very short time the weird dancer in the falling rain outside a gloomy Paris suburb converts himself into a murderer, without even a touch of guilt nor remorse.

Patrick Dewaere would have deserved all possible accolades (and a 10 out of 10 here) for his acting, his role of Franck. The script is well done, with respect to the decline of Franck. The actual case, the method of murder, police inquiry, killing yet one more person is just unbelievable. No interrogation, his boss trying to exhort half of the loot, and the end unfortunately don't make a useful story.

Neither does the prostitute who is forced into this business by her aunt, nor that she falls for Franck. The chemistry and psychology just doesn't match between Mona and Franck. Those fruitless conversations in the snow-covered suburbs don't help.

Never mind, this is a movie that you ought to see, for its fabulous string of things accelerating downhill with frightening speed.

And a movie that you'd probably never want to see again, because of its 'noir square' angle. I love film noir, but here you won't get a single minute of sun.

There is in this movie one of the best scenes ever to be seen on. Deweare is outside on a parking place, in the night in the city. He shouts etc. About love. I don't remember exactly what he says, but the sadness, lostness, despair and loneliness in the city that he is expressing, the image this scene is offering has been one of my main inspirations for my artwork. This movie makes me really cry, so much it touched me in my heart. It is like a religious experience, this image of estrangement in modern lost times in the city.

The late seventies, the very dull east suburban area of Paris, winter, waste grounds and awful new towns in the landscape. The set is definitely a character of the film. An amazing thriller, very dark with unique characters, completely lost in their misery, although full of the little hopes of ordinary lives. The cast includes a wonderful Patrick Deweare as "Franck", a magnificent looser, and Marie Trintignant as "Mona" a desperate teenager, almost autistic. Their encounter is the lead of this bloody black romance, that will leave you, nevertheless, with an optimistic feeling...

'Série noire' released on screen in 1979 is part of the gangster movie series that Alain Corneau made in the first decade of his directorial and screenwriting career. It is the French adaptation of a novel by Jim Thompson, co-writer on Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory' of 1957, a successful novelist in the 1970s in France, where apart from this film he also inspired 'Coup de Torchon' by Bertrand Tavernier. The film has many qualities, intriguing characters and an interesting cast, but I lacked a more consistent crime story. I did not read Thompson's book, but I was left with the feeling that elements of the story that would have better supported the evolution of the characters were omitted or neglected.

From the first scene it is clear that Franck Poupart, the hero of the film, lives a part of his life in an imaginary world, in which he is more than a pitiable salesman carrying a suitcase of samples of merchandise from which we never see him selling anything. In the better but less real part of his life he imagines himself to be something else somewhere else, maybe a gangster in an American movie. When he meets Mona, a young woman just out of her unhappy teen years, sequestered and forced to prostitute by her aunt, Franck will try to play the role of the hero in the movies, but the reality in which he lives is far too sordid and the complications are not late to appear.

What I liked. Slipping into tragedy is accompanied by insanity and grotesque. Their combination, together with the hopeless love story between the two pathetic characters, is excellent. Franck and Mona manage to gain the empathy of the spectators despite the deeds that they commit, which are presented as an extreme reaction to an already violent and corrupt environment. The significant contribution belongs to the actor's creations of Patrick Dewaere (in the role of the tormented Franck, perhaps the best role of his career) and Marie Trintignant (in the role of Mona, fascinating in her first consistent role). Coincidence of destiny - the lives of the two actors ended both tragically - Dewaere committed suicide a few years after acting in 'Série noire', Marie Trintignant was killed by her husband in 2003. Another remarkable creation is that of Bernard Blier in the role of Franck's boss. The cinematography brings us to the screen a Paris of the desolate suburbs, frozen lands in a cold and dry winter, poor interiors. Corneau is one of those directors who were initially assistants to the Nouvelle Vague masters and who when they became independent created in various genres ('film noir' being one of them), applying the lessons learned and developing them creatively in different directions.

What I liked less. The film lacks a clear dramatic structure. The relationship between the two main characters is predictable from the beginning, and the actors' creations cannot supply a certain dose of predictability. Franck's secondary relationship is less well outlined and the motivations of his acts remain unclear. Insanity is too easy a pretext. I dare say that 'Série noire' is a fake 'film noir'. It is rather a story of tragic and hopeless love in the world in which it happens and with the characters involved.

"Série noire" is an overrated black comedy directed by Alain Corneau. The story of the clumsy loser door-to-door salesman Franck Poupart is kind of lose among crime, drama and black comedy but does not work very well. Maybe in the late 70´s it would be better rated. The slow pace is not adequate to the story and Patrick Dewaere is annoying with his stupidities. Marie Trintignant is a great surprise performing the teenage prostitute Mona and her first encounter with Franck is unforgettable. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Série Negra" (Black Series")

Serie noire is an excellent french movie, especially because of the acting of Patrick Dewaere, unfortunately dead now. The atmosphere is noire and tough and it is impossible not to be touched by the sensibility of this personnage play by Patrick dewaere. This is one of my favourite films of the seventies.

Expecting more when start to wach this neo color french noir that in opening scene show us an upcoming weird picture, a cheap and stupid guy who works as salesman on black market maybe stolen things for door to door, the main weird character is in real case of mind study whom featured in the movie, talking alone and louder almost crazy, the way that the things will developing becames worst each more step ahead, a bit of psychology was wisely used suddenly by the bad lucky boy's boss, odd but fine entertainment for something different approach of a french's school of cinema non commercially field!!

Resume:

First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD Rating: 8

This movie had the potential to be great, in my opinion, but some elements were flawed, to start with the over the top performance of Patrick Dewaere. I know he depicts a crazy man, but he is screaming everytime he's on screen, and this become rapidly irritating. At the end, I could not take it anymore and turned off the volume when I saw him opening his mouth and gesticulating madly at the other characters.

Marie Trintignant is very beautiful and intriguing but annoying, too, in her constant silence. It would've been more enriching to listen more from her, in order to discover her psychology.

Now the strong points: the gritty Paris of the 1970s, urban realism, Bernard Blier's quiet and masterful performance, the surprising criminal downfall and the last image of the movie.

6,5/10-and I would not like to see this movie again.

Unique, that's the only way to describe this movie that is absolutely impossible to put in any category...it has a very very special atmosphere, which I have never seen before. Patrick Dewaere is purely awesome, outstanding, one of his best roles, unforgettable, for this adaptation of a Jim Thompson's novel that I have never read. The opening scene, with Dewaere doing calisthenics with a very old fashioned and bizarre music, this scene announces and summarizes the whole movie. Not a drama, not a crime movie, not a comedy, simply something unique. Alain Corneau makes here something that looks like a Bertrand Blier's film. Everything, characters and situations, is sordid here, everything. It's a nasty losers story, emphasized by the settings and music.

I was really really really looking forward to finally seeing this one, and was somewhat disappointing to find that the story is weak and the pacing even weaker. Patrick Deaware is fine--he actually reminded me a bit of various other actors here (he kind of looks like Vincent Gallo from Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny here but there's also a little bit of Johnny Depp here if you squint a bit) Honestly the film is a lot slower then it should of been--and i feel like once the big turn of the plot happens--there's not much else to keep the viewer interested in what else might happen (ie--there's not much else to the story even though the film keeps going on as if there is) I liked the little dances that Deaware's character keeps doing--and i like how it becomes clearer and clearer that he's not just a likable eccentric--he's actually certifiably insane as the film continues on--but even so you're kind of with him through most of the film---at least i was---and that's not a bad thing for a film noir....after all you're supposed to be on the main character's side--and as the film kept going on, i liked that that notion becomes more and more difficult to sustain---really makes you question the notion of why we're supposed to like the main character in most movies like this---which is a neat trick for a movie to pull but the story is just so empty after a while i was just happy to latch onto anything that i could just to maintain interest in what was happening.

I very very much loved Andreas Katsulas's performance as Tikedes here---and if anything wish that he had been given even more screen time then the handful of scenes that he has here---Love his entrance in the film with him running head first into the glass door of a telephone booth that Deaware is holding himself in to keep from being killed by this great bull of a man. Its quite a character entrance! This is i suspect one of those films that should a proper region 1 DVD release ever come out a great cult of film lovers will gather around and admire as a real true pitch black noir--but i couldn't quite bring myself to love it as i felt the pacing of the thing was just too sluggish for me to really get into, especially in the second half when i was eagerly awaiting the other shoe to drop so to speak. Would that the entire film worked as well as say the first 15, 20 minutes of the film--which had me so ready for anything that the fact that not much happen during the rest of the film is just that much more disappointing.