I... For Icarus

of course, even though we are talking about a French movie here. It should quite obvious to anyone who saw the movie that the Dallas shooting at JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald are the starting point of the story.

One of the judges in charge of the inquiry (Yves Montand) decides he does not agree with the conclusions of the committee he is a member of. Then trouble begins...

One of Verneuil's best movies, if you ask me. The other ones would be "Le corps de mon ennemi" and "Peur sur la ville." (Belmondo rules, and so does Marie-France Pisier!).

Highly memorable, intelligent and suspenseful movie from one of French movies' true geniuses, the formidably able Henri Verneuil. The plot is an exact parallel of the JFK assassination, and takes place in a non-descript, fictional country. The film, visually as well as plot-wise, is razor-sharp. Shot with meticulous precision, it follows Henry Volnay, the Procuror who takes on himself to unravel the coup. In many ways, it's a very disturbing movie, not the least for the cold and analytical precision of its comment on a so-called modern state's inner workings. The atmosphere and characters are all utterly believable, and Verneuil left nothing to chance in its tight plotting. On another level, this relatively little-known movie just had a 15 years head-start on Oliver Stone, who was acclaimed for the "JFK" movie, a inferior film in many areas, the least of which not being credibility...

It's a masterpiece, any cinema lover should see it, preferably in its original French version with subs.

Henri Verneuil's film may be not so famous as Parallax View, 3 Days of the Condor or JFK but it is certainly not worse and sometimes even better than these classic representatives of the genre. Action takes place in fictional western state where fictional president has been killed. After several years of investigation, special government commission decides that president was killed by a lone gunman. But one man - prosecutor Volney, played by Yves Montand - thinks there's something more to be investigated and so the film starts. This movie doesn't deal with some exact theories, but it embraces the whole structure of relationship between government and society in today's world. Such film could be made only in the 1970-ies but it will never lose it's actuality. Furthermore, it's even a bit frightful how precise are it's oracles. 10 out of 10.

A political film using as pretext the assasination of JFK. Admirable performance of Yves Montand and interesting remind of the Milgrame experiments , especially for the dialogue of the structure of totalirtarian regime between Volnay and professor.

Maybe, in 1979, a political film.

Today, good remind about recent revolutions, executions, regime radical changes and this fact makes I...comme Icare more realistic, against obvious holes.

A film on the line of fight for truth of costas Gavras great movies , proposing a precise warning and reminding the need of implication to stop the secret services almighty influence.

And, sure, profound inspired end, with poetic reflexes.

I saw this movie the first time about 20 vears ago, when I was a teenager. Quite shocking then, it now reveals some lacks, though it´s still one of my favourites. I saw it last week, after I recorded it (German version) from TV. The plot is very close to the JFK murder facts, and the authors didn´t want to hide that. Look for the names, "Daslow" becomes "Oswald" when You rearrange the characters. :-) The too long chapter concerning the psychological experiment (based on the Milgram experiments at the university of Yale) is a little bit out of place.

But for the rest ... but see Yourself, You won´t regret it!

Gerhard