Diagonaldi Very well executed

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Aristides-2 As happens on occasion with subtitled foreign films I become confused and perplexed at what appears to be the discrepancy between what the characters are doing and/or involved with and what the subtitles have them saying. Such was the case in spades with Coup de Torchon. In this instance the result was to make the characters, particularly the main one, even less accessible as far as trying to understand why they/he did what they were shown doing. I gave this movie 2 stars because of this disembodiment. *I was told some time ago that if a foreign film (or an English speaking one) is not wildly popular when first released, but has something appealing that a distributor thinks might make a few bucks then, in some cases, the bottom line rule gets applied and the subtitling job goes out for bids to companies that don't apply standards that are usually applied to movies with more popular pedigree. Such might be the case with 'Coup de Torchon'.

Michael Neumann Bertrand Tavernier once again shows why he's one of his country's most challenging directors with this disturbing dark comedy, loosely adapted from a Jim Thompson novel ('POP 1280') but relocated to French Equatorial Africa just before World War II. The story follows a lazy, ineffective police chief in a dusty colonial city, who begins to manipulate his tormentors in much the same way they earlier abused him, discovering along the way the omnipotence of his position and the immunity provided by his reputation as an incompetent buffoon. After suffering the indignities of a natural born doormat all his life, he strikes back with a vengeance, slowly descending into a rational madness that commands sympathy while simultaneously provoking moral outrage (at one point he callously murders the innocent native servant who mistakenly witnessed on of his killings). Tavernier builds the tension from his characters rather than from the plot, using touches of unsettling black humor to further blur the line dividing comedy and tragedy.

ThurstonHunger In general the Criterion Collection has been pretty reliable for me, and while I'm glad I came across this film, I see it as a somewhat ambitious failure. I have not read the Thompson novel from which it was drawn, but transplanting a story from the American South to crumbling colonial West Africa alone is inspired.If the film is a comedy, then it did not work me. The melding of slapstick with social commentary ran thin for me, but again it could just be that I lack le bone funny. At least I recognized parts here that likely were intended to be ribald (as opposed to some Japanese humor, where I'm often completely lost).Perhaps it is not that the humor is stupid (although the recurring dimwit incest interlude and the outhouse surprise...surely push it), but that the characters are stupid. That being said, the lead character it is of course crucial that you see him as a bozo of sorts, but behind his broad caricature of indolence, is there some intuition or even initiative stashed away? Again, an ambitious choice to have an apparent laggard as your lead character. He's seen as perpetually exhausted and at the same time amazingly lazy. An inept if not corrupt sheriff, but potentially very fair-minded. A slothful yet irresistible sex machine? That character alone was worth the watch for me, especially a couple of more serious discussions he has.But ultimately what does the film do? Take us from the joys of a meaningless existence to the tragedy of a meaningless existence. The directors sets up some of the early kills as somewhat justified, only to move through less and less "necessary" slaughter ending abruptly with the image of innocence being as wantonly wasted? And that image is meant to tie back visually to the films start, as if to imply this is just the way of the world. A cycle of violence.Does this excuse our pot-bellied peculiar policeman? Do his messianic delusions even make sense, as he plots to seduce the "pure" schoolteacher? And do the three women intentionally seem to similar, as if they are plots along the same curve and that curve is a circle.I don't know, and regrettably I did not care as much as I should have. Perhaps the clumsiness of the film that might pass as charm for other viewers? Perhaps the predictable randiness, that even a few decades ago felt like a use of sex as cheap titillation.Is it just a parable of despair? Is it just a jokey eulogy for the colonial ways, saying adieu to its greed, stupidity and savagery? I don't know, that's why it gets a 5/10 for me... I do know that it makes me want to read the Thompson novel to see what inspired Tavernier to take on this.See what you think, but if you think I'm too harsh on the stupidity of the film, I hope you get the DVD that offers the proposed alternate ending with two monkeys... Ugh...that would have got a 3/10.

Spleen One of those films that's known, if at all, entirely because of its amusing title, is something listed on the IMDb as "Zeisters" but alternately titled "Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid". One suspects the alternate title is apt, too, because there's probably not a lot more to that film than a fat guy going nutzoid. "Clean Slate" could also be called, with about as little oversimplification, "Doormat Goes Nutzoid". The first part of the film sees Bertrand Tavernier, helped along by Pilippe Noiret's broad acting and more co-operation than was strictly necessary from the rest of the cast and crew, establish again and again and again that Lucien is a doormat. In a typical scene two people who are of little account themselves will take turns tripping him so that he sprawls in the dust, only to watch him get up and apologise for falling over. It's like watching George McFly from "Back to the Future".Then, in the latter and believe it or not better part of the film, Tavernier and Noiret slam on the brakes, skid 180 degrees and show us Lucien going nutzoid, killing off whoever gets or has gotten in his way, safe from suspicion because of his established persona. The film ends when it ends.I saw a 16mm print which did little for what I suspected was nice, crisp location photography, but it was clear enough Tavernier was trying (with success) to make the remote and somewhat neglected African village look like a bare stage; which, along with the hints of pervasive colonial corruption, was necessary to allow such a piece of conceptual art as "Doormat Goes Nutzoid" to come to life. Necessary, but not sufficient.