‘Le vieux fusil‘, Robert Enrico‘s 1975 film has a glorious history, at least from the point of view of the Cesar awards that reward the best French films. It won the award for the best film of the year it was released, and ten years later it also won a Cesar of the Cesars, a kind of award for the ‘best of the best’ award-winning films. In perspective, the appreciation seems slightly exaggerated. The film fits well with a time when France looked nostalgically at the heroism of the Resistance and wanted to forget the collaborationism that had dominated the country politically for most of the war years. From an artistic point of view, the film has many qualities but also some aspects that have somewhat degraded with the passage of time.
It is an heroic story based on real events (even if they did not happen exactly as described in the film) from the summer of 1944. The Allies had landed in Normandy, the collaborationist regime was beginning to fall apart, the German occupiers were retreating. The doctor Julien Dandieu lived a quiet life with his beautiful wife Clara and their teenage daughter. When the situation in the town of Montauban where Julien practiced his profession became threatening, he sent his family to the family castle in a mountain village. Just there, however, a German platoon killed the entire population of the hamlet, including Julien’s family, in horrific circumstances. The moment he realized the horror of what happened, the peaceful doctor turned into a fierce avenger.
It can be speculated that Robert Enrico was influenced by the very fashionable revenge films of the time, with Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson as protagonists. The theme is not alien to classic westerns either. Melodramatic and kind of sketchy? Maybe. The quality of the film derives from the fact that it manages to truthfully describe the traumatic psychological transformation that the hero goes through, from a peaceful citizen into a revenge machine, up to the extent of the horror that destroyed his family and his life. Constant flashbacks build the history of Julien and Clara’s relationship. The fact that it wasn’t a perfect marriage adds to the authenticity. Ordinary people can become vengeful killing machines under extreme conditions. The moral dilemma is not deepened but only suggested. Philippe Noiret and Romy Schneider deliver two of the solid performances of their careers. Narration is flawless. The filming location – a labyrinthine castle, the details of which are much better known to the owner than to the German occupiers – is excellently constructed as a set. The music, extremely discreet and expressive, belongs to Francois de Roubaix, a very talented film composer, who had managed to compose the music for over a hundred films by then, even though he was only 35 years old. It was his last film, as de Roubaix died in a scuba diving (his life’s hobby) accident in Tenerife shortly afterwards. One more reason to watch or re-watch ‘Le vieux fusil‘, a film that, even if it has lost some of its original brilliance, is very interesting in many ways.