MONSIEUR HIRE
A film review by Sandy Grossmann
Copyright 1990 Sandy Grossmann
Cast: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, Andre Wilms, Luc Thuillier
Director: Patrice Leconte
Synopsis: French film based on Georges Simenon's "Les Francailles de
Monsieur Hire," subtitled. An intriguing tale of love,
suspicion, and murder. The voyeur watches a woman from
the window of his dark apartment while Brahms plays in the
background. In some ways reminiscent of MAN OF FLOWERS,
this film provides an unlikely protagonist within an unusual
murder mystery/psychological drama. Definitely worth seeing.
Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc) is an enigmatic tailor who is watched suspiciously by his neighbors. His pale face, rigidly upright posture, and meticulous hygiene are unusual enough, but his unsmiling and piercing gaze set him quite apart from the masses.
Hire is not a sociable man, and more than his posture seems rigid when we first meet him. We see him watching the rest of the world, and we understand that he is apart from that world: he is detached, an observer. What goes on inside his head is a mystery.
A murder in the neighborhood causes the finger of suspicion to point toward the unusual Monsieur Hire. His neighbors fear him, but his pets--white mice--do not. When one mouse dies, he carefully wraps the little form in a swatch of fabric. We begin to glimpse Hire, but we must be voyeurs to unravel his story because much of the information we need is visual.
Of course, this voyeurism on the audience's part is more than just a device. In order to catch a thief, so the saying goes, one must be a thief. Monsieur Hire is a voyeur, so we become voyeurs in order to know him. We watch him watching his neighbor Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire). We watch her watching him watch her. We watch Alice's boyfriend (Luc Thuillier) and Alice. We watch the investigator (Andre Wilms) watching Hire. We watch scene after scene in the same way a nosy neighbor hides behind drapes while looking out the window. And we begin to sense that someone knows something that he or she wants to know if anyone else knows. Confusing? Not when you're watching.
This unusual film explores trust and suspicion, passion and detachment, hope and hopelessness. Peter Travers (Rolling Stone magazine) noted that this film is shot in extremely wide Panavision, making the faces startlingly close and vivid. We know those faces intimately: as intimately as if we were watching them from inches away. Yet we keep examining those faces for more clues, because no matter how close we are, we need an interpreter, a Greek chorus to tell us what we're seeing.
Leconte has solicited highly charged yet subtle performances from Blanc and Bonnaire. Under his direction, the film emerges as a coherent thriller which has prompted critics to admire both the style and the content of this movie. This film deserves that acclaim.
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