Looking at my April viewings,the most unexpected quality viewing I've had is François Truffaut's 1975 Costume Drama The Story of Adele H,largely due to the performance from Isabelle Adjani. Since seeing him charge the Neo-Noir atmosphere up with 1981's Garde à vue,I've been keeping a look out for more creations by Claude Miller. Checking Adjani's credits,I was thrilled to find that she had worked with Miller on a Neo-Noir that has recently turned up uncut with Subs, (the cut DVD came out after US remake Eye of the Beholder)which led to me breaking the circuit.View on the film:Following up Garde à vue by cameraman Gilbert Duhalde becoming the cinematographer here, directing auteur Claude Miller beautifully expands on the recurring motifs of Garde with lush outdoor watercolours, and a haunting Jazz score from Carla Bley. Making the 2 hour run-time move at an incredible speed, Miller gives "The Eye" tracking Marie a pristine Neo-Noir clarity of tracking shots following The Eye's attempts to blend in with the crowd. Bending the initial investigation to the Eye's growing obsession,Miller twists it into an ultra-stylised dream-logic world,where Marie's killings have the metallic shine of Giallo, a telekinetic-like connection made with smoothly-held tracking shots,and an explosive shattering of the connection between The Eye and Marie.Spreading limited details of Marie's life across the screen in photos, Michel & Jacques Audiard's adaptation of Marc Behm's book brims with a Neo-Noir attention to detail,where The Eye excitingly takes the smallest clue to make the fullest portrait of Marie. Turning the mystery down to a simmering threat, the writers masterfully piece together The Eye's years following of Marie into a study of obsession, where the anticipation of speaking to her gets The Eye to start imagining/performing what he dreams their first encounter will be.Lighting the eyes of The Eye from every sighting, Isabelle Adjani gives a magnificent performance as Marie, whose mysterious murmurs on her life pulls everyone from Stéphane Audran's " The grey lady" to Sami Frey's Ralph Forbes towards this Femme Fatale's blast of silence. Reuniting with Miller after Garde,Michel Serrault gives a thrilling performance as Neo-Noir loner The Eye,with Serrault and Adjani impressively creating chemistry just from glances at each other. Desiring to learn all about Marie,Serrault strips The Eye's life to a raw obsession,which cracks as the deadly circuit breaks.

You can see what this movie is trying to say....in fact, you can see it all too well, as it keeps beating you over the head with its two central ideas: Michel Serrault has lost his daughter and sees Isabelle Adjani as a potential replacement, to the degree that he is willing to overlook her murderous tendencies, while Adjani has developed these murderous tendencies because she has also lost her father at a young age. This story could have been told in a 30-minute short; in 115 (or 95, depending on which version you watch) minutes it is plodding and repetitive (she kills, he follows her, she kills, he follows her, she kills....), not to mention unbelievable. Serrault gives a good performance, however he spends about 80% of the movie mumbling to himself and has little interaction with other people, which makes his character tedious not before long. To fair, there ARE a couple of memorable scenes: Adjani's cold-blooded razor slashing of another woman is one, the car stunt at the end is another. ** out of 4.

Mortelle Randonnée is arguably one of France's best noir ever. And one of Isabelle Adjani's brightest hour. You unfortunately have to understand french to fully appreciate Michel Audiard's brilliant, darkly humorous dialogs (and especially Serreault's monologues). Claude Miller's direction is at once classy and precise (very similar to his work on L'Accompagnatrice), while Pierre Lhomme's cinematography is lush when needed, gritty when necessary (mainly during the last third). I read a few bad reviews here and there and I must add, and I know I'm not the first, that the States version, not only the recent DVD but also the TV version and the old VHS, well, has always been the truncated, 95 min. cut. Now, the movie showed everywhere else in the world runs 120 min. sharp. Think about it: it doesn't only mean that almost quarter of the movie is absent, it also means that the editing, fatally, is different, so is the rhythm, the feel, the movie altogether. I saw the DVD and frankly, while the transfer's OK, it doesn't make much of an impression, but then again, think that almost half an hour's gone. I never understood that thing with American distributors and foreign films, as if American moviegoers needed shorter, tighter movies so it won't be too much of a shock. That's ridiculous. Any moviegoer, American or whatever, that goes to the theater and buys a ticket for an Adjani/Serreault movie is obviously not looking for The Rock or Paul Walker. Well, that's what I think anyway. The rating, of course, applies to the official 120 min. version. If you have a chance to see it, don't miss it. A real gem.

Behind his front of overflowing bitterness and cynicism, private eye Louis Beauvoir (Serrault), nicknamed L'Oeil, is deeply missing of a child to protect and cheer, while he is tracking down a serial killer, Catherine Leiris (The iris)(Adjani).The followed young woman will be just half-real, she'll be rather like the private eye dreams her.Like a picture of innocence in his memory, she should stay untouched and untouchable, so he will involve himself in her flight. Through his eyes and ears, she is a mythomaniac orphan, she has misbehaved, she considers herself as garbage, but she wants fondness, getting a substitutive father's attention by murdering men and women who get too close to her.The dream can last as long as the soliloquizing self-designated father can stay in tune with his substitute daughter, despite awakening bodies on their road, every bodies that did not have sleepwalker's stare and beat. We, as viewers, wish the great encounter and the forgiveness. We dream. We are willing to roam.A long time after we are supposed to be awake and down to earth, we are still humming the main musical theme, or La Paloma, or Schubert's lieder, who all played in the movie.Mortelle randonnée is an ambiguous and dark fairy tale for adults, sprinkled with bridges and winks. After many viewing, there is still to explore and enjoy in Mortelle randonnée, at least in the version I saw (118 min.).Mortelle randonnée is only a movie, not somebody. A movie does not think it is good. Only people can think Mortelle randonnée is good, or think it is not. It is a matter of taste. Critics who attribute thoughts or claims to movies, instead of ascribing them to film-makers or critics, should perhaps visit a psychiatrist.