Grey buildings standing imposingly on a French coastline. An incoming storm whips the ocean and rain washes over deserted streets. A car moves slowly with four men in trench-coats and hats. They stop on a street corner and through the mist is a bank with its lights on, just about to close for the day, and the street lights turn on in the distance. This is the eerie opening to Un Flic (1972; A Cop), the last film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I love his masterpiece, Le Samourai, and only recently caught up with Le Circle Rouge; Un Flic is his third collaboration with actor Alain Delon, though this time he switches from playing a cool, silent criminal to a weary, silent cop (named Coleman). Melville’s trademark cool and elegant approach to the crime genre becomes emptied out here. There are empty streets in key scenes and empty people for protagonists. As Delon does the rounds, visiting crime scenes in his car with his subordinate, we observe Richard Crenna as Simon, leader of the thieves who rob the bank and are planning a further elaborate heist. Quite a thing to see Rambo’s colonel in the Le Samourai trench-coat, dubbed into French, and his youthful yet craggy face blends right in with the jaded looking criminals. The third part of this triangle is Catherine Deneuve as Crenna’s girlfriend, a nightclub hostess, who is also having an affair with Delon’s character. Yet Melville doesn’t seem to care about any emotions exchanged; everything is another empty transaction. Hard to tell if the artificiality on display – such as the painted backdrops of certain scenes and the very obvious models during its sustained, wordless second act heist involving a helicopter dropping Crenna onto a train to steal precious cargo – is part of the intended aesthetic? Or is simply an older filmmaker not bothered that a real helicopter is intercut with a wide shot where it looks like a child’s toy? Films like Le Samourai and Le Circle Rouge have an artistic tension in their bored observation, watching process and having characters say less with words and more through precise actions. There is similar tension in Un Flic but also a resigned nihilism, emphasising the law side of the coin as a hollow proposition. There’s a drained, blue-grey early-morning ambience to Un Flic, and the result is that it feels much more alienated than the Dirty Harry inspired Euro-cop movies that would follow in its wake (some of which would star Delon). I also loved the striking editing of people exchanging looks, head-on close-up shots cutting back rapidly between each other, indicating more emotionally and visually than the few words said. Available to stream on Kanopy in Australia. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 