The network of a thousand eyes

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Movie
German title The network of a thousand eyes
Original title Le Secret
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1974
length 102 minutes
Rod
Director Robert Enrico
script Robert Enrico
Pascal Jardin
production Jacques-Eric Strauss
music Ennio Morricone
camera Etienne Becker
cut Eva Zora
occupation

The network of a thousand eyes is a French thriller from 1974. The by director Robert Enrico staged film is considered a masterpiece of " paranoia - thriller ", a sub-genre of the French crime film that was particularly common in the 1970s. Mistrust and fear of state power are omnipresent in these films . The novel Flee not with strangers (Le Compagnon indésirable) by Francis Ryck served as a template for the film.

action

David escapes from a prison hospital after strangling a guard. He hitchhiked to Paris and hid there for one night with a lover he had met two weeks earlier. The next day he takes the train to a snowy, lonely place in the Cevennes . There he finds shelter with Julia and Thomas. For the two of them he is a mysterious stranger whose paranoia they don't see through, but who is sympathetic to them. By chance, David is seen by a shepherd and a large military command arrives with helicopters, parachutists and tanks. The supposed hunt for David turns out to be just a maneuver.

David tells fragments of his torture in prison, befriends Thomas, who believes him, and falls in love with his skeptical wife Julia. Thomas decides to take David across the border to Spain. Julia is against it, but cannot prevail. Thomas has a boat by the sea, they should be safe by sea. They drive off in a rickety van, on the way they have to bypass a police barrier. Julia senses a trap in every obstacle. When they reach the boat, there is a leak in the water.

Meanwhile, Julia has written a letter to her brother, who is a journalist, asking him to investigate David. While the men are fishing at the sea, Julia breaks all the tires on the car. She wants to get Thomas to believe in persecution by the state. While Thomas is walking to the next town to get a car, the state authorities track down the trio through a politician friend of Julia's brother. David and Julia spend the night together. The next morning Thomas returns from town and learns from David that he slept with Julia. Thomas stays calm because he really loves Julia. Julia drives to the workshop with the broken tires. David and Thomas feel they are being watched by a forest worker. David shoots him. Thomas convinces Julia to go to Paris.

On the way, Julia picks up a letter from her brother from the post office. He explains to her that David is a dangerous insane person. This time they are really being watched. Julia returns and shoots David. While Thomas holds her tightly in his arms, agents sneak up on the two and kill them. There is a press release that the insane wanted killed a couple who were on their way on vacation and then killed themselves. Julia's brother is eventually locked in the same prison hospital in which David was held. He doesn't really know anything, but somehow too much.

backgrounds

In the film you don't learn anything about the state secret that David is said to have discovered, or about why he ended up in the prison hospital dungeon.

A dialogue between Julia and Thomas sums up the atmosphere of the film. To Julia's objection “What if he's crazy?” Thomas replies: “What if he's not?”

The last sentences from which spoken off are: “In order to protect itself, our society today has developed methods that are sometimes inevitable. Julia's brother actually didn't know anything and despite all that too much and so the gates closed behind him too. ”In addition, a close-up shot of Julia's brother after the torture, lying on a cot, and in the reverse section a picture of Julia's brother shows him the moment he passed Julia's message on to a politician he thought he was friends with. This should clarify what can become of a man in a short time who only passes on a message, the importance of which he cannot assess, out of a sense of duty.

Reviews

"Sometimes the atmosphere is very dense and captivating, but overall too confused and psychologically not entirely believable, the horror-like film leaves a rather ambivalent impression."

“The somewhat misunderstood masterpiece Robert Enrico (" Even murderers have beautiful dreams ") turns out to be an excellent psychological thriller. Here you never know what is reality, invention or madness? The riddle is only solved in the last shot of the film. "

"Cleverly constructed and superbly played"

Deviations from the literature

For reasons unknown, the names of the two male protagonists "David" and "Thomas" were swapped in the film. Also in the novel it is not clarified which state secret "David" could have betrayed; However, it becomes clear there that in the final year of the Algerian War he was a member of the French military or a police unit and was involved in fighting against insurgents.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The network of a thousand eyes. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. The network of a thousand eyes at prisma.de
  3. [1]