Film: MR 73
Release date: 3rd May 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Olivier Marchal
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Olivia Bonamy, Phillippe Nahon
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France
Rounding off his loose trilogy of crime thrillers, Olivier Marchal reunites with Daniel Auteuil for a bleak examination of dark hearts and darker souls. Can the filmmakers’ innate humanity and compassion counter a cinematic vision almost wilfully devoid of optimism?
Twenty-five years after apprehending Subra, the most depraved serial killer he had ever encountered, Detective Schneider finds himself on the trail of another fiend who is committing atrocious sexual murders. Unbeknown to him, Subra - now 68 years old - is on the verge of being released from prison, having convinced the parole board of his spiritual redemption. This development is deeply troubling for Justine, the now grown-up daughter of Subra’s last victims, who reaches out to Schneider in an attempt to gain some kind of understanding and closure.
Schneider must battle his demons - internal and external, present and past - as he attempts to put the pieces together before any more murders take place, knowing all the while that inner peace will likely elude him…
Sharing tonal and thematic similarities to recent Euro-breakout The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but significantly less pleased with itself, MR 73 is a quietly gripping dark thriller that quickly recovers after a decidedly clunky opening sequence - a brief bus-siege scene that is as listless as the protagonist, Detective Schneider - a jaded drunkard who is, naturally, something of an investigative savant. Curiously unimaginative in its construction, and oddly static in its execution, the opening feels like a hastily rewritten overture designed purely to function as a memorable intro to our leading man. But after shaking off this early stutter step, and settling down into a deliberately paced, slow-burn narrative split into two initially disconnected halves, MR 73 proceeds with a novelistic attention to character and nuance that is as rewarding as it is troubling.
By juxtaposing a present day investigation into a sexual serial killer with more emotional fare involving young Justine and her inability to overcome the trauma of seeing her parents savagely murdered, the film makes up in low-key intrigue what it lacks in narrative momentum, especially in the first half. This is a thriller less concerned with ‘who did it’ than it is with lifting the veil off its players, and letting an audience gaze upon tortured souls, twisted minds and helplessly dark hearts. Its narrative may not prompt the audience to guess along with the investigators, but it is uncompromising in its refusal to spare them any emotional gut punch as the story unfolds.
Holding it all together is the phenomenal Daniel Auteuil, whose Detective Schneider is as magnetic as he is pitiful, Marchal’s leading man somehow managing to present every ‘haunted ’tec’ cliché in the script, with an engrossing humanity that makes the character seem fresh. It is a towering performance that dominates the film, and if the supporting cast doesn’t quite match him in the innate watchability stakes, Marchal’s commitment to a stark realism leaves each role teeming with conviction.
The darkness of the characters is matched by the saturated palette of the cinematography, the director’s keen eye picking out the bleakness of the cityscape, with admirable resistance to ‘seedy’. The Marseille streets, even in daylight, are no more inviting than Subra’s prison cell, and it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that its look and tone is not overwhelming for an audience. The humanity to the characters ultimately staves off any invasion of ‘jaded’ or ‘defeatist’ into the tone, making the time spent with troubled and troubling people wholly worthwhile.
A harsh, uncompromising French thriller that skimps neither on gore nor nihilism. This is dark-hearted filmmaking, but even at the end of his loosely connected ’police trilogy’, Olivier Marchal can still find new spins on old staples. The key is in the characters. JN
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