Andre Cayette arguably pioneered social comment in French cinema with his Are We All Murderers in 1952, other film makers flagged down the bandwagon and hopped aboard but none perhaps more unexpectedly than Claude Lelouch who had himself cornered the market in chocolate-box cinema and whose films celebrated Life rather than dwelling on Death as he does here.
His choice of metaphor - a bullfight in which we are spared no gory detail of the barbaric 'sport' - is apt only inasmuch as it is a barbaric ritual but inapt inasmuch as in general the bull has committed no crime and therefore requires no 'punishment' and there are those who would argue that a serial killer HAS committed not one but several crimes and does therefore deserve some kind of punishment. Lelouch also attempts to stack the deck in the way he chooses to tell his story; we begin with the main character, Amidou, being tailed by five plain clothes cops as he enjoys a motel rendez-vous with a girl friend. For all we know he is as innocent as the bull in a corrida and equally out-numbered. Nothing about him is in any way sinister and if anything he seems a pleasant enough sort of guy albeit an unfaithful one - we see him at home with wife and child as well as enjoying trysts with the girl friend. Eventually he is arrested in mid-copulation and THEN we learn why he has attracted the attention of the flics. He may or may not be the serial killer who has strangled several prostitutes - and if he was, he has 'reformed' as it were, on the strength of his new relationship. Be that as it may he is convicted and sentenced to death and it is here, in the latter part of the film, that Lelouch sets out his stall; the film segues from colour to black and white as we register first the tedium of prison life and then the growing terror as retribution draws nigh. Lelouch emphasizes the ritual aspects (parallelling the bullfight) which include the minutiae surrounding the assembly of the guillotine. Caroline Cellier, a fine French stage actress, makes one of her relatively rare film appearances, but the movie belongs to Amidou, then totally unknown, who delivers a fine performance in a fine film.
His choice of metaphor - a bullfight in which we are spared no gory detail of the barbaric 'sport' - is apt only inasmuch as it is a barbaric ritual but inapt inasmuch as in general the bull has committed no crime and therefore requires no 'punishment' and there are those who would argue that a serial killer HAS committed not one but several crimes and does therefore deserve some kind of punishment. Lelouch also attempts to stack the deck in the way he chooses to tell his story; we begin with the main character, Amidou, being tailed by five plain clothes cops as he enjoys a motel rendez-vous with a girl friend. For all we know he is as innocent as the bull in a corrida and equally out-numbered. Nothing about him is in any way sinister and if anything he seems a pleasant enough sort of guy albeit an unfaithful one - we see him at home with wife and child as well as enjoying trysts with the girl friend. Eventually he is arrested in mid-copulation and THEN we learn why he has attracted the attention of the flics. He may or may not be the serial killer who has strangled several prostitutes - and if he was, he has 'reformed' as it were, on the strength of his new relationship. Be that as it may he is convicted and sentenced to death and it is here, in the latter part of the film, that Lelouch sets out his stall; the film segues from colour to black and white as we register first the tedium of prison life and then the growing terror as retribution draws nigh. Lelouch emphasizes the ritual aspects (parallelling the bullfight) which include the minutiae surrounding the assembly of the guillotine. Caroline Cellier, a fine French stage actress, makes one of her relatively rare film appearances, but the movie belongs to Amidou, then totally unknown, who delivers a fine performance in a fine film.