Thieves

I've watched this movie less as a coherent whole and more as an interrupted series of brilliant little moments. There is the scene where Catherine Deneuve is riding in the car explaining the philosophical nature of money. It didn't belong, but it was a very nice scene. There is the scene where Daniel Auteuil and Laurence Cote chat over his breakfast in a hotel and he sees her laugh for the first time. Nicely set up. Then there is the scene where Deneuve and Auteuil go to the Opera. The plot is muddled, but the actors provide fascinating little moments. Props to Techine for incredible direction with attention to character insight.

Please, don't get misunderstood by the title: Thieves. OK, it is question of thieves, and also of a cop, but strangely despite those "ingredients", the way this movie is "cooked", it is not a crime drama. But a drama and characters study, yes, definitely. The making is very accurate, made with the greatest care, with a very complex story telling. Which supposed a very complicated editing game. It is not a crime film with gunfights, car chases; very unique indeed in the movie history. There are films with cops without being crime films, for instance GARDE A VUE or POLICE, but with cops and robbers without being a crime film.... Not my stuff, but still a good film.

I DVR'd this film in spite of a two-star rating from Comcast, because I like Daniel Auteuil and Catherine DeNeuve. How bad could it be? I wasn't disappointed. It begins with a mystery-who killed the father of the cynical little kid? And slowly breaks open the story, revealing the characters as it reveals the criminal enterprise that brought them all together. Most of them-including the little kid-are not family-friendly. This isn't a family film. A cop who hates his brother and is in turn hated by their father, who tells him, face to face, that he would have preferred that the cop had been killed instead. The dead man's son seems to despise his entire family, including his mother, and his uncle, the cop. Who, in turn, doesn't like kids. The cop's girlfriend doesn't like him much, and he really doesn't want to deal with her except for sex. But as others have noted about this film on this forum, the director pulls out just enough unexpected gilded moments to make it enjoyable to watch-like: a middle-aged college professor delivering a 3-minute dissertation on the position of money in western philosophy to a professional car thief during a nighttime ride-as a passenger- through the streets of Lyon. At the car thief's request. That sort of theater of the Absurd approach is one thing I like about French films. They're dependable that way.

Everyone is a thief in this film; don't pay for the goods emotional or physical. A psychological film on the need to take love where we can, things where we can because money is in the main excrement in the world excreted from one person to another. Deneuve sums the need for money in a car scene which is quite brilliant as she is talking to a thief who takes. This is our world and we are all involved in theft in one way or another, as deep down it is a love/ hatred towards sexual obsessions and objects, to have, then pass them on. As one reviewer said it is not a ' family ' film, and the acting is up to Techine's high standard. The consequences of crime reminded me of French crime films of the 1950's ( Gabin etc ) and the studies of each character interesting to watch. The only scene that did not convince was Deneuve having her first Lesbian relationship. She acted it well, but the kiss ( a bit blurred or was it my eyesight ) was total fake. I give it an 8 because for once in his films I found it too clever and too contrived. Snow features quite a lot; coldness of the heart, the cold thrill of stealing and the human heart too emotionally divided. Look closely at the scene where Deneuve collapses, and while she is unconscious Auteuil steals her face by taking a photo of her.

A love triangle. A crime story. A drama about fraternal conflict. All could make fine stories on their own, but in this film they're thrown together, and then given a philosophical spin (appropriate, since one of the characters is a philosophy professor). It's also more character-driven than you'd expect from this type of story; we are taken into the character's motivation, so we understand their actions, rather than have them driven by plot machinations. And it's done like a novel, flashing back and forth, so actions unfold gradually to reveal another layer. Unfortunately, as, it seems, with many films from France, the story doesn't so much end as stop. This may be appropriate with something like, say, UN COEUR EN HIVER, but it left me feeling a little cheated here. Still, this is worthwhile viewing.

Of the actors, the only ones which are immediately familiar to me are Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve. Auteuil is playing someone who has trouble expressing himself, a character he seems to specialize him, based on what I've seen of his films (JEAN DE FLORETTE/MANON OF THE SPRING and UN COEUR EN HIVER), and he does another fine job here. I've never been a fan of Deneuve; I usually find her too inexpressive and icy. Here, however, she plays a character you usually don't find in crime films; an older woman having an affair with someone younger (here, a woman) who isn't fading or scheming. She makes Marie, who at first seems didactic, fully human.