The Clockmaker

Bernard Tavernier once confessed that the greatest influence in his life had been the work of directors Akira Kurosawa and Michael Powell. This might explain his direction of the film based in the novel by Georges Simenon's.

It shows a Tavernier more concerned with the character study of M. Descombes, as he goes through the horror of understanding what had caused his son to commit the crime of which he is been accused of perpetrating. In doing so, M. Tavernier embraces the "old French cinema", as he shuns away the New Wave methods of story telling.

One can see clearly what's going on in Descombes' mind, at all time. His son has grown up and is not a child anymore. We see this father come home and encounters newspaper reporters and he goes into his son's room and lays down in the bed that perhaps the younger man has not slept in for quite some time. We watch as Descombs descends into hell because he can't comprehend what has triggered his son into doing what seems repugnant to him and his dignity.

Pilippe Noiret was born to play Descombes. This actor with such subtlety, underplays the clockmaker, and the father. What comes to the surface is the inner turmoil that Descombes is experiencing. This is another example of how good an actor M. Noiret is because with an economy of gestures he builds the character. Jean Rochefort, as the inspector, is also good. M. Rochefort is another actor that always surprises.

This movie is a psychological portrait of a man at the crossroads of despair. Only at the end, father and son seem reconciled with one another. The city of Lyons has been photographed lovingly in this film.

This is a Tavernier for discriminating tastes.

In spite of watching that movie for the sake of great director Bertrand Tavernier, I came across a purely eccentric and impressive masterpiece. Philipe Noiret ,my favorite actor in il Postino and Cinemo Paradiso, performs his boundary limits. Bertrand Tavernier's left glass a little ruins films from the political concern. However this does not reduce the total film quality. Tavernier's camera focuses on an ordinary widow clockmaker surrounding with the high tension political turmoil in Lyon early 1970s. Noiret's son is accused of a factory boss murder and runaway. Between police and his son, Noiret tries to find the real reason that led the murder. But this is a neither action nor criminal movie. Pure relationship between father and son is the core theme of the film. All things considered I strongly recommend this impressive and emotional movie for people to have some idea about the political atmosphere of early 1970s.

This film is a brilliant portrayal of a man caught between his private memories of a fugitive son and the political interpretations of his son's actions. There is a constant interplay between Michel Descombes's private existence, individualized profession (as an artisan, he is necessarily the opposite of a mass producer), and the public spectacle that his son has become. It is truly a fascinating commentary on subversion and freedom, wonderfully played by Noiret and other greats, that provides incredible emotional depth.

L'HORLOGER is faultless. Based on a Simenon novel, it is a measured take on crime, not from the usual point of view of the criminal or the detective, but the waiting father, who must come to terms with his own past and deceptions as a parent.

In avoiding melodrama, the film follows a determinedly unsensational, grey, flat, mundane route. Tavernier rejected the flashiness of the nouvelle vague, in favour of older traditions of French cinema, with emphasis on character, and milieu, meaningful camera movements, and a literate, complex screenplay, while also linking cinematic tradition to his narrative of fathers and sons.

His recreation of Lyons is novel after a decade of Paris overkill, and you can feel the post-1968 political tension, the alarming shift to the right, and the straying of decent men into violence. Phillipe Noiret, one of Europe's greatest actors, is quietly astounding. Everything about the film is as good as it should be. So why, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, isn't it very interesting?

The lonely, simple life of Michel Descombes (Philippe Noiret), a clockmaker who lost his wife years ago, changes when hears that his grown-up son murdered a man and is on the run with his girlfriend. Michel is shocked and questions his upbringing, while a nice police inspector (Jean Rochefort) shows much sympathy for him.

Tavernier's shining debut and co-operation with New Wave veterans Aurenche and Bost brings a novel by Simenon on screen. It's a work of old-fashioned concision that the mechanic of the title would have been more than proud of. It is more a psychological study than a crime drama, because there is next to no outer plot. The happenings are taking place in the head of Michel, the father, masterly played by Philippe Noiret, who suddenly gets confronted with the serious actions of his son. He becomes aware of how little he knows about him, although they used to be together all the time. The focus is less on the murderer nor on the victim, but more on what the catastrophe means for the father of the committer, in a powerful work of authenticity.