137 - Coup de Torchon, 1981, France. Dir. Bernard Tavernier.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

137 - Coup de Torchon, 1981, France. Dir. Bernard Tavernier.

Lucien Cordier is the local police chief of a French village in colonial West Africa.

Bourkasa.  Senegal.

He is weak.

His wife Huguette takes advantage of him.

She keeps her brother Nono at their house and shows him affection.  And more.

If he is her brother.

She takes Lucien's money.

She berates him.

Everyone in town humiliates him.

Vanderbrouck the businessman.

Le Peron.

The two local pimps.

Lucien is used to it.

He lets people push him around.  He offers to receive bribes, but people do not even do that.  They simply ignore him, mock him, kick him in the pants, shove him in the river, and laugh at him.

Lucien has his own mistress.

Rose.

Who is married to a man who beats her.

One day he decides he has had enough.

He rides a train to consult with his superior.

His superior advises him to toughen up.

He toughens up.

He meets Anne on the way back.

She is the new teacher.

She does not fit in this world.

She is good.

Good hearted.  Good minded.  Good souled.

Now he has a challenge.

Lucien is not good.

And he is willing to get his hands dirty to clean up the town.

He begins to clean up the town.

He gets his hands dirty.

Using his own style of justice.

He eliminates the pimps.

He removes Le Peron.

He drops Vanderbrouk in the pit of the loo.

He sets up Rose to take care of Huguette and Nono.

Nono Huguette.

Then strangely, he turns against Rose.  And sends her on her way.

And he chooses not to pursue Anne.

He knows he is not good.

Bernard Tavernier, the director, adapted this story from a Jim Thompson novel.

Pop. 1280.

Meaning it is about a town with a population of 1,280 people.

Or "1280 souls."

The town of Pottsville.  In Potts County.

In West Texas.

Tavernier had read the novel and loved it.  He wanted to make it into a film.  But he could not translate the small-town hardboiled American amorality into the streets of Paris.

When he thought about taking it to French colonial West Africa, he realized he could do it.

The rural setting.  The racial tensions.  The heat.

He films the setting in rich colors.  With Philippe Noiret as Lucien Cordier wearing memorable salmon-colored and yellow t-shirts with a khaki brim hat matching his pants.

Philippe Noiret plays his role with mysterious ambiguity.

Is he passive?  Is he broken?  Is he lazy?  Is he corrupt?

Is he stupid or does he know what he is doing?

You can watch this movie more than once and see different movies.  Different motivations.

You can see the heat rising from the earth.

You can see the dust in the air.

In a system that is broken.

Among people who are lost.

Some dead in the river.

Some dead inside.