Alfred Hitchcock died in 1980, but not completely. In fact, his influence is so strong that to this day, 45 years after his departure, not only are his films watched and re-watched, analyzed and enjoyed, but they also represent benchmarks for many of the creations in various cinematic genres, such as suspense, horror, spy films or psychological thrillers. One of the absolute compliments we can give to a director or screenwriter who has created a film with a strong visual impact or brought an extraordinary story to the screen is to characterize that film as a production that even Hitchcock would not have been ashamed of. This is certainly the case with the film ‘Mortelle rendonnée‘ (the English distribution title was ‘Deadly Circuit‘) made three years after the master’s death, in 1983, by Claude Miller. The quality was to be expected, as the script, which loosely adapts a ‘serie noire’ novel, is by Michel Audiard, perhaps the most remarkable screenwriter and dialogue creator of French cinema since the Second World War. But what Miller has done with this material is something very special.
The hero of the film is a private detective (nicknamed The Eye) in the vein of those imagined by Raymond Chandler: cynical and lonely, although he does not work independently but in an agency with a stern boss who is more concerned with expenses. He carries with him a personal trauma – a marriage that broke up after the death of his only daughter, Marie, 20 years ago. He solves crossword puzzles and talks to himself, which is the original pretext for a permanent voice-off commentary throughout the entire film. He looks so anonymous that we almost believe that he could be following the young and beautiful Catherine, a serial killer, for days, weeks or months across half of Europe, without her ever noticing him. Catherine also carries a trauma of her own, as if in a kind of symmetry of the destinies between the detectived and the followed suspect. She tells her various victims stories about an imaginary father, sometimes a lecturer, sometimes a polar explorer. In fact, she is an orphan raised in the public system, who had slipped down the slope of crime. Does The Eye imagine that he has found his lost daughter in the pursued killer? Maybe so, in any case, from a moment on, the detective turns into a protector. Are there any chances of saving her?
Michel Audiard does not try to create any illusion of credibility in his script. In fact, perhaps, of what we see on the screen, little is true and the rest is the dreams and desires of the two heroes. Only the corpses are for sure real. The detective’s obsession with talking alone and out loud gives Michel Audiard the opportunity to create another series of dialogues (or rather monologues) of those in which he was a master. Isabelle Adjani is fascinating in a role in which she envelops her beauty in mystery and a vulnerability compensated by violence. Michel Serrault creates another character wounded by life, forced to hide his traumas and loneliness. The two evolve in their parallel universes until their meeting at the end of the movie. Another remarkable acting creation is that of Stéphane Audran, ugly and aged by make-up to the point of not recognizing her for a surprising composition role. The music, original or combining variations on Schubert and ‘Paloma’, expressively accompanies story. ‘Mortelle rendonée‘ is a strange and special thriller, with two heroes that will remain in the memory of the viewers. Hitchcock would have appreciated it.