It's not that well known when great french films are discussed but this is a wonderful film, cunningly written and directed so that our expectations are constantly being changed. It works then as an entertainment but it has one of the greatest endings of any film. There's no way of describing it that won't spoil it. There's a time and a place for SPOILERS but there's nothing to be gained by putting them here. The end conveys love as well as anything I've ever seen. Not the joys of a quick affair but the sense that two people have been in a relationship which has matured over many years. Very special and well acted by the three leads.

"Le Secret," a French movie directed by Robert Enrico, stars Jean Louis Trintignant as a man who has stumbled accidentally upon a state "secret." We never find out exactly what it is, but it is something so awesome and so dangerous that the government first confines him to a mental ward and then hunts him down to eliminate him once he manages to escape. There are some shades of Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" here.After his escape the man is befriended by Philippe Noiret who plays a character of supernatural goodness reminiscent of his role in "The Clockmaker." Noiret and his less altruistic wife Marlène Jobert harbor and protect the man while they wonder whether he is telling them the truth or is indeed the killer which the authorities say is on the loose. Their uncertainty will cost them dearly.The movie is weakened by our never knowing what hideous truth the man has uncovered (a sort of unexplicated Hitchcockian 'MacGuffin') and by an overly oblique directorial style from the man who gave us the unforgettable "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." The principals, nevertheless, are uniformly excellent, and the shock ending managed to frighten me a great deal.

A mysterious prisoner goes on the run, claiming to hold a State secret putting his life in dangers. An innocent couple get caught up in his flight, and the series of adventures which follows. The tension builds to a crescendo and the sense of mystery prevails throughout this paranoiac thriller, in which the reason of State takes an implacable turn.

Under mysterious circumstances a strange guy (well played by Trintignant) escapes from some underground asylum. He finds refuge with a couple of fringe people of 68 who seemed to have retired to a tranquil life somwhere in the south of France. The strange visitor revives old dreams and memories and represents new opportunities to make something more out of life. The couple, superbly played by Philippe Noiret and Marlène Jobert, have each their own reasons to be interested and intrigued by the visitor. After a series of sometimes menacing, sometimes hylarious events, always impregnated with a subdued tension, the movie ends somewhere in the emptiness of some isolated beach.This is a very good movie. The images and the playing show a lot but also leave a lot to be guessed by the watcher. It makes a point (about Big Brother who is watching you) and is mysterious enough to remain full of tension.