The Owl's Cry (1987)

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Movie
German title The owl's cry
Original title Le cri du hibou
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1987
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Claude Chabrol
script Odile Barski
Claude Chabrol
production Antonio Passalia
music Matthieu Chabrol
camera Jean Rabier
cut Monique Fardoulis
occupation

The Cry of the Owl is a French film drama by Claude Chabrol from the year 1987 . The script is based on the 1962 published, the novel by Patricia Highsmith .

The film tells of the divorced illustrator Robert, who spies on a young woman, Juliette. When the two get to know each other and Juliette leaves her fiancé because of Robert, a chain of dramatic events begins.

action

After the Parisian illustrator Robert separated from his wife Véronique, he moved to Vichy . There he lives in an anonymous development area. He is very cautious about his colleagues. In the evenings he watches the young Juliette who lives in the house of her heir aunt during her vacation. When Robert decides to reveal himself to Juliette, Juliette discovers a passion for him that he is uncomfortable with. He prefers not to get involved with the "woman of his dreams".

Meanwhile, Juliette rejects her plan to marry the research drug salesman Patrick, who travels frequently. Patrick doesn't want to accept Juliette's decision. He fights over her furiously and challenges Robert, whom he suspects to be to blame for the breakup. In doing so, he climbs into increasingly wild threats until the conflict finally escalates. He phones Véronique, who advises him to use physical violence. Thereupon he cuts off Robert, who is on the way to Juliette, with the car and hits him. During the fight, Patrick falls into a river from which Robert pulls him out. Patrick now forges a plan of revenge: he hides in a Paris hotel to expose Robert to the suspicion of murdering him; he is supported by Robert's scheming ex-wife Véronique, who sees this as a game and as a late revenge on Robert.

With the police, Robert comes under increasing suspicion, especially as gradually intimate things from his failed marriage as well as the closer circumstances of getting to know him and Juliette come to light. Even when Robert is shot one night in his house, this does not change much in the attitude of the inspector. Robert is even more targeted when Juliette, out of desperation over the unrequited love and against the background of her special relationship to death, commits suicide. Finally, Robert is shot in the arm in the second attack by Patrick and finds accommodation with the old doctor who has been called for help. When Patrick starts a third attack on Robert there, the doctor falls hard and falls into a coma in the hospital.

Meanwhile, Véronique's partner Marcello, who can no longer watch the atrocities, has betrayed Patrick's hiding place in a Paris hotel to Robert. Robert then informs the police immediately, but they don't seem to be doing anything. Finally, Patrick turns himself in to the police, but without confessing. Soon after his arrest, thanks to his father's relationships, he is free again. In his distress he seeks Véronique, from whom he hopes for help, but she demands that he keep her out of the police and incites him in a perfidious game to an ultimate campaign of revenge.

Together the two drive to Robert, Patrick smashes his dishes and they provoke him. The situation escalates when Robert hears about the doctor's death through a phone call. When Patrick becomes aware that he is a murderer, he completely loses control and attacks Robert with a knife. Robert is able to fend him off and Véronique tries to take the knife from Patrick, but she is fatally wounded in the neck.

At the end you see Robert's bloodstained hand reaching for the knife that Patrick had in his hand, while he persuades himself "Don't touch it!"

background

Claude Chabrol moved the setting of the novel from the USA to France and adapted some personal names to French (Veronica / Nickie - Véronique, Greg - Patrick, Jenny - Juliette). He also provided the serious tone of the original with an ironic undertone; however, the main features of the plot were retained.

The Cry of the Owl started on October 28, 1987 in French and on March 3, 1988 in German cinemas.

Also in 1987, Tom Toelle made a film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel for German television. Another adaptation was made in 2009 ; the British director Jamie Thraves directed the film with Julia Stiles and Paddy Considine in the lead roles.

Reviews

“A confusing story. Chabrol doesn't tell them, he puts them on the record. He leaves out the superfluous, that which keeps the events flowing. So, despite all the hectic pace of detail, a series of still lifes remains. Patricia Highsmith's novel, transplanted from the small American town to Vichy in France, shrinks to a morbid chamber play. [...] "The Owl's Cry" is also an equipment film. The feelings have slipped into the fabrics and the fantasies into the decor. But that remains as meager as the average European film budget allows. In Hollywood, such fairy tales were shot in the studio. But Chabrol is filming on location. His world looks like a studio. [...] "The Owl's Cry" is a film à la carte, with voyeuristic temptations as an aperitif, the jealous drama as the main course and the inevitable corpse for dessert. "

"Skilfully abbreviated, yet precise transmission of the psychologically subtle novel by Patricia Highsmith in a tragicomic accentuating staging."

“The moment the superintendent shows up and the whole thing gets something like a crime scene [...], the level drops (the thing with the dead in the water). Or Chabrol just wanted to show that a basically completely innocent person who got something started, but can no longer control everything else at all, is covered by a relentless police identity melody, which is covered by the behavior of the other participants, above all is so intensified by Patrick, who goes into hiding, that Robert's helplessness becomes almost martyr-like, which Juliette's suicide pushes even further. It is not for nothing that Robert is beaten like Saint Sebastian once did (the arrows have been replaced by bullets). [...] And Robert can only look in disbelief at what he has done with his voyeurism in the never entirely innocent garden. The depressed sorcerer's apprentice. Diagnosis: incurable. "

- Dieter Wenk : Film headquarters

Awards

In 1988 , Mathilda May won the César in the Most Promising Actress category . For his portrayal of the commissioner, Jean-Pierre Kalfon was nominated for a César as best supporting actor.

Individual evidence

  1. The Owl's Cry in the Internet Movie Database .
  2. ^ Review in Die Zeit number 10, March 4, 1988.
  3. ^ The Cry of the Owl in the Lexicon of International Films .
  4. Review on Filmzentrale.com .

Web links