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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: French ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Cast/Crew Interview(s), Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier, a former Sergeant in the French military, shoots his beloved and attempts to kill himself. Having survived with two bullets in his brain, he is released from the Dole medical facility, a place of mental and physical filthiness. Then begins a five-year period of wandering on the roads of the South East of France, during which Bouvier rapes and eventually kills two dozen defenseless shepherds and farm servants of both sexes. Judge Rousseau thinks this case would help his career as a right wing politician and therefore issues warrants of arrests to find any hobo fitting the description. But if Bouvier was declared insane, the Judge's plan may become a trap... SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Ceasar Awards, ...The Judge and the Assassin ( Le Juge et l'assassin )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Tavernier's second film is virtually a two-hander between Tavernier regular Philippe Noiret (the judge) and Michel Galabru (the assassin). Galabru's performance has a terrifying ferocity and conviction as the seriel killer of small children who is clearly insane, but who can still use logic within his insanity to point up the hypocrisy of the society he lives in. Galabru, who up to this point had been mainly known for light comedy, is somehow freed up by this character to take down all internal censors; he throws himself into it unreservedly.
By contrast Noiret is cold, calculating, emotionally stunted and reticent. The contrasts between the two are intense - middle class vs working class, soldier vs. civilian, anarchist vs. conservative. And yet Tavernier seems to be saying that the judge is in some way the assassin and the assassin the judge. The judge can see that Bouvier is insane, but insists that he's play-acting, because his sense of revenge requires that Bouvier goes to the guillotine.
This is a historical film set in the 1890s, and the Dreyfus case is in the background, ultimate manifestation of the corruption of justice by an intensely anti-semitic society. Tavernier suggests, but doesn't hammer the point, that there are parallels between Bouvier's case and Dreyfus's.
He also suggests that the impulses in Bouvier are in all of us. This is why, after Bouvier has confessed to killing and anally raping some of his victims, the Judge has to go and force sodomy on his reluctant mistress (Isabel Huppert).
As often happens in Tavernier, some of the crucial scenes in the plot development happen offscreen - we never see the execution for example, which the Judge has worked so hard for. Instead we get an intensely felt and intensely argued film, almost a philosophical dialogue, about the nature of crime, sanity and responsibility.
The film closes with an epigraph: Bouvier killed 12 children between 1893 and 1896; in the same period 2,500 children died working in French mines. This is an uncharacteristically angry film from Tavernier, but he never lets his anger divert him from telling the story through the characters.
By contrast Noiret is cold, calculating, emotionally stunted and reticent. The contrasts between the two are intense - middle class vs working class, soldier vs. civilian, anarchist vs. conservative. And yet Tavernier seems to be saying that the judge is in some way the assassin and the assassin the judge. The judge can see that Bouvier is insane, but insists that he's play-acting, because his sense of revenge requires that Bouvier goes to the guillotine.
This is a historical film set in the 1890s, and the Dreyfus case is in the background, ultimate manifestation of the corruption of justice by an intensely anti-semitic society. Tavernier suggests, but doesn't hammer the point, that there are parallels between Bouvier's case and Dreyfus's.
He also suggests that the impulses in Bouvier are in all of us. This is why, after Bouvier has confessed to killing and anally raping some of his victims, the Judge has to go and force sodomy on his reluctant mistress (Isabel Huppert).
As often happens in Tavernier, some of the crucial scenes in the plot development happen offscreen - we never see the execution for example, which the Judge has worked so hard for. Instead we get an intensely felt and intensely argued film, almost a philosophical dialogue, about the nature of crime, sanity and responsibility.
The film closes with an epigraph: Bouvier killed 12 children between 1893 and 1896; in the same period 2,500 children died working in French mines. This is an uncharacteristically angry film from Tavernier, but he never lets his anger divert him from telling the story through the characters.
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
And what a difference between this dvd version and the awful copy that was put out on video. Great to have this movie, and in colour, unlike the video release, which needed the colour control on the telly tweeked up to full blast just to get a bit of green on the hillsides. And miraculously the sharpness of the images actually lets me see trees, and not what looked like clumps of green cotton wool. A terrific movie with the impeccable Phillipe Noiret giving another great performance in a terrific story.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Long Live Anarchy and Socialism!
31 Dec 2007
Amazon Verified Purchase
I was impressed by "The Judge and the Assassin" and would have thought more of the film had I not watched it to the very end. In it there was a Leftist political celebration that was, I presume, done to highlight the director's purpose in creating this period piece into a movie. For me the problem was that the impact of the film did not match such boldly stated politics. For me, "The Judge and the Assassin" was a strong story of Truth, Justice, and the Franconian Way (with appologies to superman who most certainly did not appear in this film).
This is an excellent film about a very depraved murderer and violator of young women and the self-promoting efforts of a judge to realize justice as he perceived it. The preformance of Michel Galabru as the vile killer deserved an Oscar but, as a foreign-language film, it didn't even receive a mention in 1976. As his murders persisted over a two year period, the judge was already readying his prosecution in conversations with a fellow jurist. Eventually the two did have to deal with each other and I came to understand that the essential issue was the sanity of the accused. I'm no proponent of the death penalty but I couldn't seen that the issue was all that significant. After all, the murderer did on many occassions, make demands and requests that suggested a pretty clear knowledge of what was happening to him. Add to that the barbarity and extent of his crimes and the death penalty starts looking like the appropriate resolution. The murderer kept blaming others for his crimes by suggesting that he should have been better diagnosed and treated for his sexually perverse obsessions (more suggestions that the man was sane enough). I realize that I'm belaboring the point but wait til you see how the director, Bertrand Tavernier, gets caught up in it. Apparently in France you don't execute an insane individual and the judge saw that his path to fame involved the proper use of the guillotine. Thus the movie's ending disappoints and we find a minor portion of the film is now the focal point of the director.
These events, by the way, took place during the time of the infamous Dreyfus Affair which was referred to from time to time. I gathered that it was used to butress the director's depiction of the judge and his crowd (they didn't like the Captain). I would have to agree that the treatment of Captain Dreyfus was inexcusable but remember that his opponents were in the majority of French opinion for quite a while back then. I got a kick out of the murder's politics as well. He would frequently yell out "Long Live Anarchy, Long Live Socialism!". I presumed that those two political theories would be at each other's throats one they succeeded in jetissoning whatever powers that be.
I said that this is a very good movie and I want to repeat that. There's a lot of good dialogue and character development. But don't say I didn't warn you about the ending.
This is an excellent film about a very depraved murderer and violator of young women and the self-promoting efforts of a judge to realize justice as he perceived it. The preformance of Michel Galabru as the vile killer deserved an Oscar but, as a foreign-language film, it didn't even receive a mention in 1976. As his murders persisted over a two year period, the judge was already readying his prosecution in conversations with a fellow jurist. Eventually the two did have to deal with each other and I came to understand that the essential issue was the sanity of the accused. I'm no proponent of the death penalty but I couldn't seen that the issue was all that significant. After all, the murderer did on many occassions, make demands and requests that suggested a pretty clear knowledge of what was happening to him. Add to that the barbarity and extent of his crimes and the death penalty starts looking like the appropriate resolution. The murderer kept blaming others for his crimes by suggesting that he should have been better diagnosed and treated for his sexually perverse obsessions (more suggestions that the man was sane enough). I realize that I'm belaboring the point but wait til you see how the director, Bertrand Tavernier, gets caught up in it. Apparently in France you don't execute an insane individual and the judge saw that his path to fame involved the proper use of the guillotine. Thus the movie's ending disappoints and we find a minor portion of the film is now the focal point of the director.
These events, by the way, took place during the time of the infamous Dreyfus Affair which was referred to from time to time. I gathered that it was used to butress the director's depiction of the judge and his crowd (they didn't like the Captain). I would have to agree that the treatment of Captain Dreyfus was inexcusable but remember that his opponents were in the majority of French opinion for quite a while back then. I got a kick out of the murder's politics as well. He would frequently yell out "Long Live Anarchy, Long Live Socialism!". I presumed that those two political theories would be at each other's throats one they succeeded in jetissoning whatever powers that be.
I said that this is a very good movie and I want to repeat that. There's a lot of good dialogue and character development. But don't say I didn't warn you about the ending.
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