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L'Argent [DVD] [1983]
 
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L'Argent [DVD] [1983]

DVD ~ Christian Patey
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
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Frequently Bought Together

L'Argent [DVD] [1983] + A Man Escaped [DVD] [1956] + Lancelot du Lac [DVD] [1974]
Total RRP: £59.97
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

L'Argent [DVD] [1983]
63% buy the item featured on this page:
L'Argent [DVD] [1983] 3.8 out of 5 stars (5)
£5.48
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Product details

  • Actors: Christian Patey, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline Lang
  • Directors: Robert Bresson
  • Writers: Robert Bresson, Leo Tolstoy
  • Producers: Antoine Gannagé, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, Jean-Marc Henchoz
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language French, Latin
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: PG
  • Studio: Artificial Eye
  • DVD Release Date: 23 May 2005
  • Run Time: 82 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0007OC6ZG
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8,786 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    Popular in this category:

    #81 in  DVD > DVD Bargains > The Best of World Cinema

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Reviews

Synopsis

Robert Bresson won a Best Director Award at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Grand Prize for Creation, for this contemporary revision of Leo Tolstoy's short story. The tragedy tells of how an innocent prank goes wrong and becomes the definitive moment in a man's life. When a young man passes a forged 500-franc note at a photography shop, the photographer passes it along to an unsuspecting victim. It eventually lands in the hands of Yvon Targe (Christian Patey), an innocent man who is detained when he tries to use it to pay for a meal. Hiring an attorney to hopefully bring the truth to light, Yvon is shocked to discover that the photographer will not budge from his story. To make matters even worse, he has goaded his assistant into lying along with him. This causes Yvon to lose his job and self-respect, triggering a downward spiral that results in a murder. Bresson's final film is a haunting commentary that condemns materialism and its sinful offspring, exploring universal themes that only continue to grow in importance in modern society. Proving that not all filmmakers weaken as they age, L'ARGENT remains as profound a work of art as the director's early masterpiece, A MAN ESCAPED.

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
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1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bresson's final masterpiece, spare, elliptical, pessimistic, 29 Sep 2001
By Mr. A. P. Pavelin "alan23923" (Chislehurst, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: L'Argent [VHS] [1983] (VHS Tape)
Bresson's films, never upbeat at the best of times, became increasingly pessimistic, and this final film shows his view of the corrupting effect of money. Based on a Tolstoy story updated to 1980s Paris, it shows how the passing of a forged note turns an apparently honest young man into a mass murderer; this may sound melodramatic, but seeing the film it becomes wholly believable. Bresson's spare and elliptical film-making technique is as fresh as ever; no shot is unnecessary or wasted, and you have to work hard to fill in the gaps, as it were (a variant, perhaps, on Godard's jump-cuts). The effect on the attentive viewer is sheer exhileration. As usual, Bresson eschews psychological motivation; for example, one character who is shown as a downright crook is suddenly revealed to have given away much of his money to charity. Nobody is totally bad in Bresson's universe; this can be interpreted in a Christian way by saying that God's grace breaks through to even the most hardened sinner. You don't actually see any of the violence; it's all implied (or happens off-screen). A brilliant film, and a fitting conclusion to a brilliant film-making career.
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13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Much to admire but disappointingly detached, 26 Jul 2006
By Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
L'Argent is commonly hailed as Bresson's parting masterpiece, but sadly it's seriously undermined by atrocious performances and a completely unconvincing last reel. Which is a shame, because there's much to admire here. His adaptation of a Tolstoy short story about the disastrous consequences for the innocent recipient of a forged banknote has for the most part a terrific sense of narrative, exposing the way petty crime can have major moral repercussions throughout the social scale, with the rich able to buy or lie their way out of trouble. But oh, those performances! Bresson made a career out of soliciting convincing performances out of amateurs, so you have to wonder just why they are nearly all so very terrible here. Not only can they not act or give even the vaguest impression of life, intelligent or otherwise, but they move so mechanically - mannequin-like with back straight and arms down their sides like lead weights as they try to remember to hit their marks - that you wonder if Bresson actually intended the effect. Whether he did or not, it's like watching outtakes from a public information film at times, or the Swedish phrase book sketch from Monty Python. A couple of performers get by, but Christian Patey is so physically and verbally awkward in the lead that it's painful watching his progress, but in all the Wong ways.

Yet for 70 minutes at least the strength of the narrative and Bresson's spare, economical telling, lend it a relentless forward momentum, manage to hold you. Tragically, the film's resolution fails to convince in any way, turning its initially fundamentally decent protagonist into a money-hungry thrill-killer not as a logical consequence of his experiences but purely as a plot contrivance to prove a point and provide an ending. The final (offscreen) mass murder simply seems tacked-on sensationalism, especially considering the absurd set of circumstances that places him in the bosom of the family he kills.

A good film but ultimately a frustrating and unrewarding one for all it's strong points.
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13 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Review the film not the reviews, 24 Aug 2007
By Jane Worth (Chiswick, UK) - See all my reviews
Too many reviewers here abuse the reviews pages to attack other reviewers who do not share their opinions as if there was only right or wrong when it comes to art. They should talk about the film not each other. Yes I am guilty too but I see so much of this I had to comment.

The film itself is quite poor to my eyes. Bad acting and a bad ending are the main reasons. The short story is much better and I would recommend buying that instead. If you must see this film, rent it rather than buy unless you are a die hard fan of the director.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Wooden acting for emotional effect
It is indeed rare that such wooden acting can be excusable. In the case of L'Argent it is, because somehow, and don't ask me how, the film gets by without emotional performances... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. Alexander Vella

5.0 out of 5 stars The last masterpiece of a great filmmaker
The previous review is to my mind inexplicable, as 'L'Argent' is clearly one of Bresson's finest films and one of the greatest and most harrowing movies of all time... Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2007 by lexo1941

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