Bertrand Taverier's first feature film.
I saw a movie back in the '70's. I have no idea what it was and I never saw it again. But it had a watch-maker who sits very quietly working on his watches. He seemed very calm but it was the 1940's and they gave him a lobotomy in the end.
So I don't know what cruel stereotypes I had of clockmakers, but I was surprised that the guy in this movie seemed perfectly normal. It starts with him hanging around with friends. It was 1974 and they reveal that just over half the French population supported the death penalty, which meant decapitation by guillotine.
The clockmaker, Michel, was played by pudgy, middle-aged, normal-looking Philippe Noiret. He looked tougher than Dick Van Patten, not as tough as Ed Asner. But, in one scene, a couple of vigilantes break the windows of his shop and he and his friend chase them down and beat them up. He knocks the one he's working over into the river.
Michel's son didn't come home. In the morning, police show up. The young fellow is wanted for murder and is on the run.
Michel slowly realizes how little he knew about his son. He had a girlfriend he'd never met. The father was a widower and the kid had a nanny for years who was dismissed when he was twelve, and the father is surprised to learn his son was still in contact with her.
The father hangs around with the detective who assures him that they only torture Algerians and hippies. Oh, they might hit his son in the head with a phone book a few times to get him talking, but that's hardly worth mentioning.
Filmed in Lyons which looks beautiful. If it weren't for the cops and the young adult murderers it would be a nice place.
Available on the Criterion Channel.
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