The Engagement of Monsieur Hire (film)

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Movie
German title The engagement of Monsieur Hire
Original title Monsieur Hire
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1989
length 81 minutes
Age rating FSK from 12
Rod
Director Patrice Leconte
script Patrice Leconte and Patrick Dewolf
production Philippe Carcassonne ,
René Cleitman
music Michael Nyman
camera Denis Lenoir
cut Joëlle Hache
occupation
The two main actors Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire in 2009 The two main actors Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire in 2009
The two main actors Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire in 2009

The Engagement of Monsieur Hire (Original: Monsieur Hire ) is a feature film by Patrice Leconte from 1989 based on the novel of the same name by Georges Simenon .

action

The tailor Monsieur Hire (actually Hirovitch) is an outsider and eccentric. He is neither sociable nor friendly and in return is shunned by the people and teased by the children. The only social contacts in his withdrawn life are occasional visits to prostitutes and a bowling club, in which Hire becomes an admired star for hours. In his workshop he keeps white mice that he watches. And he watches people. The young saleswoman Alice has been at the center of his passion since she moved into the house across the street. While he is secretly looking at it, he always hears the same record: the almost two-minute wistful middle piece from the fourth movement of the piano quartet No. 1 in G minor by Johannes Brahms .

One day a young woman is murdered in the immediate vicinity. Hire watches as Alice's fiancé Emile washes the blood off his coat in her apartment and dumps the victim's handbag. But Hire himself is the target of the police investigation because he resembles the rough description of the perpetrator and because he is an eccentric. The police inspector starts a mind game with Hire, in which he does not shy away from branding him publicly, for example by having him run over and over to his house in front of all his neighbors at a local meeting to check the testimony of an eyewitness.

During a thunderstorm, Alice first discovers the man who is secretly watching her from his dark apartment when Hire is briefly illuminated by a flash. She is startled, but then she realizes that he might have been an accomplice. In the stairwell, she stages a chance meeting. The next evening she goes to the window and looks straight back at her voyeur for the first time. When they meet in the station café, Hire lets it be known that nothing that happens in Alice's apartment is alien to him. If he could denounce Emile without harming Alice, he would do it now. But he fears that she could be arrested as an accomplice, because he has long since fallen in love with Alice. So he offers her to flee with him to Lausanne, where he owns a small house. Alice does return his tenderness, but she just loves her fiancé Emile, a light-hearted dandy who, in turn, abandons her and leaves her for fear of the police.

Hire writes a letter to the police inspector, gives Alice a ticket to Lausanne and leaves his mice on the tracks. Then he waits in vain for her to appear at the station. He returns to his apartment, where the inspector is already waiting for him. Alice has reported Hire, claiming that she found the victim's purse in his apartment. Hire can't be mad at her and tells her that she gave him the greatest joys of his life. Then he tries to escape, climbs on the roof of his house, falls, can hold on to the rain gutter for a long moment while everyone on the street looks up to him. Then Hire falls. When he falls, his gaze remains on the window behind which Alice is standing. He hits the street and is dead.

Only then does the inspector read his letter. Hire writes that he and Alice are already far away at this point. He names the real killer and adds the key to a locker in which he deposited Emile's raincoat as evidence. And he asks the inspector not to track him and Alice because he hopes the inspector will respect their happiness.

History of origin

The novel The Engagement of Monsieur Hire by Georges Simenon was published in 1933. He played in the Paris suburb of Villejuif ("Jewish City") and his main character Hirovitch came from Russian Jews. More than Leconte's film, Simenon addressed the persecution of an outsider by society. His hire is constantly apologizing when he bumps into passers-by on the street. And unlike in Leconte's film, the truth is never made public with Simenon. After Hire died of heart failure ("broken heart") while fleeing, life goes on as usual in the small town, convinced of his guilt.

Director Patrice Leconte in 2006

In 1946 Julien Duvivier filmed the novel with Michel Simon in the leading role and Viviane Romance as Alice under the title Panique (German: Panik ). Adapted to the climate after the Second World War , his hire was no longer a Jew, but aroused associations with a collaborator who was harried by the crowd . The material was filmed again in Portugal in 1947 under the title Barrio and directed by Ladislao Vajda .

Before The Engagement of Monsieur Hire Patrice Leconte had already made six feature films with Michel Blanc , mostly comedies, in which both were involved in the script. The engagement of Monsieur Hire went in a completely different direction for the first time. His film was originally intended to be a remake of Panique , but Monsieur Hire's Engagement became more of an intimate play than a crime thriller. The love for Alice and the aesthetics of the portrayal became the focus. Leconte established himself as an auteur filmmaker with the film .

The film was shot mainly in studios because no two apartments could be found that faced each other in a suitable manner. It was important to Leconte that the time and place of the film could not be easily determined. In addition to photos in Paris, a scene in the Brussels tram was created, and the old-fashioned cars counteract with Polaroid photos . The idea of ​​the musical theme from the fourth movement Rondo alla Zingarese of the piano quartet No. 1 in G minor by Brahms was only introduced at a late point in time by the film editor Joëlle Hache . The close-ups of the turntable were shot while the sets were already being dismantled.

Reviews

Lexicon of international films : “A dreary film about a frozen life, opaque feelings and deceptive hopes, which cleverly steers the audience's sympathy. The convincing cinematic implementation of the material and the outstanding interpretation creates an intensive lesson on the ambivalence of good and bad. "

Roger Ebert : “'Monsieur Hire' is so delicate that you almost hold your breath for the last half hour. Events of weighty subtlety take their course. […] 'Monsieur Hire' is a film about conversations that are never held, wishes that are never expressed, fantasies that are never realized and murder. "

Andreas Kilb : “'Monsieur Hire's engagement' is a wonderfully aesthetic film, one of the most beautiful Simenon films ever. […] To express how well Michel Blanc embodies this role, I can only think of one embarrassing word: He is brilliant. […] 'Monsieur Hire's engagement' is only eighty minutes long. It couldn't be any shorter. Neither is it nicer. "

Awards

literature

Web links

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  1. ↑ a b c The man at the window by Andreas Kilb in Die Zeit 40/1989
  2. ^ Panic about Monsieur Hire . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1947, pp. 18 ( online ).
  3. ↑ The Engagement of Monsieur Hire. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 1, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Monsieur Hire by Roger Ebert, June 15, 1990 (English)