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Jun 12, 2009
« Les voleurs » : visit Rhône-Alpes. (6/10)
« Les voleurs » was filmed in Rhône-Alpes, possibly the most dynamic French region for luring film shoots through financial incentives and production services run by « Rhône-Alpes Cinéma », under the chairmanship of Roger Planchon, the famed stage -and film- director with whom René Allio started his career as a set decorator.
« Une affaire de goût » too was shot in Rhône-Alpes. In Bernard Rapp’s film, sets look like sets, characters like embarrassing stereotypes, outside locations like random choices and the whole film, consequently, like a fake : the characters’ environment does not hide their deficit of existence, but reinforces it with its own artificiality ; the sets and locations seem at best impersonal showrooms and indifferent backgrounds, with no ties to the scenes and characters they harbour.
« Les voleurs » achieves just the opposite. Rhône-Alpes land- and city-scapes add one more layer of diversity to the film. Though locations and sights are used less for their postcard good looks than their added value to the film narrative and their ability to interact, like the characters among themselves, with other locations in other scenes, « Les voleurs » is a great promotional showcase for the region.
The big « chalet » where the film « prologues » is located in a landscape of mountains and snow : the setting is apparently light years away from any criminal world, but snow has the ability to stifle all sound, gossip and rumour, erase all trace, footstep and even moral dirt to convey a sometimes deceptive feeling of peace and virginity.
The white and silent -except for the sound of melting snow, and perhaps melting secrets which shall emerge from their blinding whiteness- mountains contrast -and dialogue- with the gritty Lyons suburb where Alex does his police work as well as with the panoramas of the city itself, built along the Rhône and Saone rivers, on hills which look like a distant cousin to them.
The vast cocoon of the « family » chalet similarly contrasts -in « feel », architecture...- with the hotel rooms briefly visited by Alex and Juliette, Alex’s own small and impersonal apartment, Marie’s more intimate one, as well as with the big Lyons villa, from which Ivan leads his other life, away from his son and wife.
Justin and Alex talk, while wind gliders land in the background -winter has turned to summer- and we shall wonder, as we learn Marie committed suicide by jumping out of one of her apartment’s windows, whether they were a forewarning we and Alex failed to see.
A subsequent scene takes Justin to a fair, where he rides bumper cars, like his father robbed real ones, then tries his shooting skills at balloons, when his father was killed by a firearm, finally aims the rifle at Alex : we are reminded that, during the film prologue, Justin stole the gun his father hid below his bedside table and that Ivan would have enjoyed holding his brother in his line of fire ; should we therefore see the scene as a rehearsal of things to come ? No, unless such things come after the movie ends : a definite and sobering possibility.
Through Daniel Auteuil, « Les voleurs » is connected to a later film in which the actor will again portray a police officer : « 36, quai des orfèvres ».
In Olivier Marchal’s dreadful misfire, Daniel Auteuil overacts much less than Gérard Depardieu, but still a lot, as if overacting was an actor’s instinctive reaction to fill the vacuum of his character.
In « Les voleurs », as myriad material and psychological touches reassure Daniel Auteuil of his character’s unique existence, the actor is content to put it on like a familiar overcoat ; in « 36, quai des orfèvres », Daniel Auteuil is only given a name to play with and less asked to play a character than to create it. All talented actors are not talented authors.
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