Pile ou face (1980)
Directed by Robert Enrico

Film Review

Having directed a number of short films (mostly commissions), Robert Enrico made his name as a filmmaker with La Rivière du hibou (1962), a film that won him not only the Short Film Palme d'or at the Cannes film festival in 1962 but also the 1964 Oscar for best live action short film.  For the next four decades, Enrico would maintain a high profile in French cinema and notch up a respectable number of box office hits.  Most of his films were scored by François de Roubaix, whose musical compositions (subtly evocative of the classic spaghetti western) are perfectly suited to Enrico's style of filmmaking, in particular his use of landscape to define the protagonists and texture the narrative.  This happy marriage is best illustrated by Les Grandes gueules (1965) but it is also evident in Les Aventuriers (1967), Boulevard du rhum (1971) and Le Vieux fusil (1975).

After the critically acclaimed L'Empreinte des géants (1979), Enrico immediately began work on Pile ou face, a socio-political crime drama based on the novel Suivez le veuf by Canadian writer Alfred Harris.  The story recounts the disturbing relationship between a reclusive police inspector and a timid accountant who is suspected of having murdered his wife.  The film is far less interested in the mechanics of the murder investigation than in the developing rapport between the two main characters, who turn out to have far more in common than is first apparent.  The ingenious script (to which Michel Audiard lent his talents as a dialogist) and Enrico's deft handling of it create a sustained mood of murk and ambiguity, which intensifies as the police inspector and his suspect get ever more deeply under each other's skin.

Enrico's direction is as slick and measured as ever, although the confusion resulting from two parallel story strands mars the clarity and pace of the film somewhat.  Location plays a crucial part in most of Enrico's films and here it is the city of Bordeaux that provides the perfect backdrop for the narrative.  The shot of the morning mist over the River Garonne provides not only a beautiful image but a cogent metaphor for the cat-and-mouse drama that ensues, a wispy cocoon wrapped around a truth that is soon to be revealed.

After their successful collaborations on Le Secret (1974) and Le Vieux fusil, Enrico once again teams up with monstre sacré Philippe Noiret, who is ideally suited to play the debonair cop Baroni who is steeped in cynicism.  Playing along side Noiret is the equally versatile Michel Serrault (just released from La Cage aux folles), a perfect choice for the pitiful and introverted Morlaix.  The supporting cast includes a young Pierre Arditi and established performers Bernard Lecocq, André Falcon and Jean Desailly, as well as the singer and TV presenter Dorothée (recently seen in Truffaut's L'Amour en fuite (1979)). Pile ou face may not be Enrico's best or most memorable film but it is an effective thriller in the traditional French mould that delivers all it promises, including a cunning final twist.

Film Synopsis

Since his wife died, Inspector Louis Baroni has become a virtual recluse, preferring the solitude of his quiet house to the company of others.  His period of mournful contemplation is broken when he is called out to look into the suspicious death of Madame Morlaix, who apparently fell from an upstairs window.  Curious to find out more, Baroni begins his inquiry, but before he makes any headway he is diverted to another case, involving drugs trafficking.  With Baroni occupied elsewhere, Inspector Larrieu continues the Morlaix investigation and concludes that the woman's death was accidental.  Against the wishes of his superiors, Baroni re-opens the case and makes an effort to get to know the dead woman's husband.  The inspector finds he has a natural rapport with Morlaix, since both are lonely men who are distraught by the loss of their wives.  In the course of his investigation, Baroni meets the Morlaixs' neighbour, who is convinced that she saw the murder...