Terrifically nuanced performances from Gérard Depardieu as Bellamy and Marie Bunel as his impossibly graceful wife propel this strange, laconic crime drama, the last film from Claude Chabrol (1930–2010), who along with contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut wrote for Cahiers du cinéma in the ’50s and went on to found the French New Wave of cinema. The titular character (apparently based on George Simenon’s Inspector Maigret mystery novels, none of which I have read or was even aware of when I watched this film), a famous Parisian inspector, stumbles into a mystery involving a horrific car crash while vacationing with his wife.
It’s a treat to watch Depardieu’s Bellamy as he not so much investigates the mystery as lets it wash over him, almost as if he’s in a perpetually meditative state. And the plot is important, yes, but perhaps less so than the way the characters relate to each other, specifically Bellamy and his wife and Bellamy’s fuck-up brother, who brings a black cloud up for a visit. Their relationships bristle with joie de vivre, jealousy, denial, longing, relapse, and deep-rooted regret, sometimes all at once. Even with a few missteps—some of the point-of-view camerawork seems woefully out of place, especially given its (thankfully) minimal use, and, though the interaction between characters on the whole digs at truth, the day-to-day interactions and reactions of the major characters seems faintly at odds with the naturalistic filmmaking—it’s a beautiful film, with a conclusion that offers up an unexpected bookend that chills to the bone.
