77 Police

[knepo]

Beaver

Be careful, that review is NSFW!

What is NSFW?

[MichaelB]

What is NSFW?

Not Safe For Work.

Mind you, it's not exactly porn - just a topless Sandrine Bonnaire.

[domino harvey]

It's a DVDBeaver review-- if there's nudity in the film, there's nudity in the caps. This should be common knowledge by now

[Matango]

I wish that this new Beaver UK reviewer would get over the fact that Gary is letting him contribute for free. I'm not being facetious, I just wonder if it's clouding his reviews.

[colinr0380]

DVD Outsider review

[zedz]

Echoing my praise for L'Enfance-nue, a definitive edition of a great film. Police is far from my favourite Pialat, but that still puts it head and shoulders above almost anything else to come out of France in the 80s.

A fine booklet. I particularly appreciated that the images selected for it illustrated the specific points Sallitt was making in his essay, instead of just slotting in whatever production stills were at hand. (I do have to take issue with his suggestion that the opening scene was 'ordinary', but Sallitt himself pretty much undermines that judgement with his subsequent analysis of it.)

So: another must-have MoC set. Can't wait for the next batch.

[domino harvey]

I liked how even the back of the DVD case was NSFW

[Narshty]

I liked how even the back of the DVD case was NSFW

Have you seen the BFI's new Salo packaging? The peekaboo nipple on the front of the case is only the beginning.

[domino harvey]

What wonderful energy this film contains, bursting onto the screen after only a title card and plucking the viewer down in the middle of a story where moral binaries don't enter into any equation, where relationships and roles are sussed out peripherally without the forward dynamic ever slowing. I stopped trying to follow the plot pretty quickly and just let myself become enthralled with the sure-headed direction of the picture-- it seems so confidant of itself that the film's bravura becomes contagious. The constant comparisons to Cassavetes do Pialat a great disservice, as Pialat's films are alive on a level that Cassavetes' actor workshops could only dream of achieving.

[evillights]

The constant comparisons to Cassavetes do Pialat a great disservice, as Pialat's films are alive on a level that Cassavetes' actor workshops could only dream of achieving.

"Actor workshops"? I don't think either the method, or the end-result, of Cassavetes has anything to do with what that term suggests — neither any improv, nor any hysterics.

The thing that irritates me about comparisons between Cassavetes and Pialat are the reliance and assumptions about some centrality of "naturalistic acting", but I don't think that the acting styles are very similar; I do find the overlap to occur in that the emotions are raw, deeply felt, and explored beyond the regular boundaries of taste or a kind of movie-conditioned expectation. Beyond all that, though, the genuine similarities between Pialat and Cassavetes are: (1) the adeptness at editing: the mastery of dispensing with redundancy, of maximizing the "seizure" of a cut, and of knowing how to let a scene (or a group of sequences) play out — and how to utilize/undermine 'redundancy' until, felt as a whole at the end of x minutes, both what preceded and what's in the 'now' of the scene carry the shock of epiphany. That's why I think Police and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie are twin-phantom films, as mentioned on the back of the package and at the website. Although Bookie may, in the end, be the one that goes even farther, at least from a 'trance' angle; also, arguably more 'epic' in its scope and amount of content. (2) the attention, and rapture, of mise en scène. Both directors are as attuned to the frame, movement within the frame, meaning within objects and color within the fame and their interrelation with space and characters' bodies, as Douglas Sirk or Straub/Huillet.

But anyway, back to (1), as far as repetition in Pialat goes: just wait until Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble gets released...

[GringoTex]

Fantastic film, fantastic package. Probably my pick for MoC release of the year (so far).

[HerrSchreck]

Have to echo zedz' sentiment here. Wasn't anywhere near as impressed with this as say A nos amours or L'enfance nue. The piece feels stunted and suffers from a lack of affect and direction, at least for me it did. Although Pialat's films are not about What They Are About-- more often about What Is Happening-- he always knows what he's achieving in his scenes. Here he didn't seem entirely clear viz his results.

And there's two kinds of people in the western hemisphere: those who buy Gerard Depardieu and those who can't. Should I wend to the former crew, euthanize me. The guys hunchbacked bowlcut mugging makes me ill (though to his credit he came very close to winning me over in the last 1/2 hr). Some things are like cats n dogs.

Ruff ruff.

[sevenarts]

Here's my review of this great film. MOC's DVD is typically fantastic as well.

[James]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but this is seriously incredible and immediate filmmaking. I need to see it once more before saying much else, but it's absolutely positively worth watching, and the picture quality of the movie is fantastic!

[Yojimbo]

This is the 5th Pialat I've seen, - all MoCs, - and I think I can safely say this is the best of the 5; exceptional performances by the two leads, with Depardieu confirming, as he had in 'Les Valseuses' that, for a big galoot, when it came to 'doing tender and vulnerable,- in those days at least, - he had few peers.
(particularly good to see as I thought with 'Danton the slide into movie-star-dom may have been irreversible,).

You really have to wonder, though, about the criticism that Pialat suffered in his native country; for me its the shift in concentration to the personal relationship that elevates the film into the realm of Masterpiece

It makes me want to dig out my DVD of 'Killing of a Chinese Bookie' and see how they compare; I haven't seen the latter since its original (art-house) cinema release, although I'd be surprised if it came close to the Pialat.

[Yojimbo]

And there's two kinds of people in the western hemisphere: those who buy Gerard Depardieu and those who can't. Should I wend to the former crew, euthanize me. The guys hunchbacked bowlcut mugging makes me ill (though to his credit he came very close to winning me over in the last 1/2 hr). Some things are like cats n dogs.

Ruff ruff.

Bingo
(check out 'Les Valseuses' and you might just be converted!)

[MichaelB]

(check out 'Les Valseuses' and you might just be converted!)

Or repelled for good.

[tojoed]

(check out 'Les Valseuses' and you might just be converted!)

Totally agree. A great comedy and hugely underrated (with a Stephane Grapelli soundtrack to boot).

[Yojimbo]

(check out 'Les Valseuses' and you might just be converted!)

Or repelled for good.

its worth a punt to help make your mind up, which or whether!

[Duncan Hopper]

(check out 'Les Valseuses' and you might just be converted!)

Totally agree. A great comedy and hugely underrated (with a Stephane Grapelli soundtrack to boot).

I rather like him in Buffet froid.