Frantic

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Movie
German title Frantic
Original title Frantic
Country of production USA , France
original language English , French
Publishing year 1988
length 120 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roman Polanski
script Roman Polański,
Gérard Brach ,
Robert Towne
production Thom Mount ,
Tim Hampton
music Ennio Morricone
camera Witold Sobociński
cut Sam O'Steen
occupation
synchronization

Frantic (English for "desperate, beside oneself") is an American - French thriller from 1988 by director Roman Polański with Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner in the lead roles.

action

Doctor Richard Walker and his wife Sondra travel to Paris for a medical conference . Upon arrival at the hotel, they discover that they have the wrong suitcase and that Sondra's suitcase was probably mixed up at the airport. When Walker comes out of the shower, his wife has disappeared. He waits for now, but she doesn't reappear, so he goes looking. In a bar he finds someone who claims to have seen his wife being pushed into a car. He actually finds her bracelet at the point in question. The hotel porter also claims to have seen Walker's wife leave the hotel accompanied by a man. He reports his wife missing, but both the French police and the US embassy prove to be uncooperative.

When he opens the other person's suitcase, Walker finds a matchbook from the Blue Parrot nightspot with the name Dédé and a telephone number noted in it, but on which he can only get an answering machine. He finds out Dédé's address, drives there and finds Dédé dead in his apartment.

In the meantime, Walker's hotel room is searched and ransacked by strangers; However, the suitcase is not there at this time, but has been picked up by a bellboy beforehand. A Michelle left a message on Dédé's answering machine that she wanted to meet him at the Blue Parrot and would otherwise come and see him at home after the store had closed. Walker is waiting for you. It turns out that the foreign, swapped suitcase belongs to her. Michelle is a smuggler , hired by Dédé, but she doesn't know his client. Walker and Michelle get the suitcase back at the airport. Two Israeli agents then show up at Michelle's apartment and ask her about a model of the Statue of Liberty that she smuggled. Walker makes an appointment to see Michelle, listens in, then makes himself known, the agents disappear. In the broken statuette there is an electronic component that later turns out to be a Krytron .

Statue of Liberty on the Île aux Cygnes

The Arab kidnappers contact Walker and want to exchange the Krytron for his wife in a parking garage. The handover fails because the two Israeli agents show up and shoot an Arab. The embassy security officer finally seems to believe Walker's testimony because he knows that the Krytron is an interrupter used to detonate nuclear explosives. Since his wife's life depends on it, Walker does not want to give it out and flees with Michelle from meeting in a café.

He succeeds in getting in contact with the kidnappers again and arranging a new handover date at the Paris Statue of Liberty on the Île aux Cygnes . The kidnappers let his wife walk in his direction while Michelle brings them the Krytron. Suddenly the Israelis open fire from the bridge, the two kidnappers are hit one after the other, one shoots at Michelle while she is dying, who is able to slip the component to Walker before she dies. When the agents want to get it, Walker throws it into the Seine and carries away Michelle's body with his wife.

Traumatized by the events, the Walkers leave Paris.

background

Portal of the Grand Hotel
  • The film was released in the UK on February 16, 1988, and ten days later in the US. It was released in theaters in Germany on August 25, 1988. It grossed around 17.6 million US dollars in cinemas in the USA, and production costs were estimated at 20 million US dollars.
  • Director Roman Polański made a cameo as a taxi driver handing Walker the matchbook. The cameraman Witold Sobociński can also be seen briefly as a guest in the front right of the scene in the bar in which Walker speaks to the eyewitness played by Dominique Pinon.
  • The image of the city of Paris that the film shows is not very glamorous or attractive. The opening and closing credits show an expressway (to the airport), which is dominated by its commercial buildings with international neon advertising (many Japanese companies, including BOSCH and AEG ). When driving in the city, the taxi is stuck behind a green garbage truck for two long periods.

synchronization

The German dubbing was done on behalf of Deutsche Synchron Film GmbH in Berlin .

role actor German speakers
Dr. Richard Walker Harrison Ford Wolfgang Pampel
Michelle Emmanuelle Seigner Carolin van Bergen
Sondra Walker Betty Buckley Judy Winter
Williams John Mahoney Lothar Blumhagen
Shaap Jimmie Ray Weeks Klaus Jepsen
The kidnapper Yorgo Voyagis Claus Wilcke
Peter David Huddleston Helmut Ahner
Gaillard Gérald Klein Christian Brückner

Reviews

The film received mostly positive reviews, earning a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 40 reviews.

“Roman Polanski's new film […] is the sequel to Hitchcock with Polanski's resources. And that's because he knows how to hit a real key in the collective soul keyboard of fear. It is a very contemporary fear that has a lot to do with helpless bureaucrats, an alien, indifferent environment, overburdened and overwhelmed police officers. "

- Der Spiegel 34/1988

“A surprising story full of well-known clichés based on superficial tension; overall rather disappointing despite perfectly staged details. "

Film music

  • I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango) - Grace Jones
  • I'm Gonna 'Lose You - Simply Red
  • The More I See You - Chris Montez
  • Jah Rastafari - Culture
  • Chicago Song - David Sanborn
  • The Song From Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart) - The 101 Strings Orchestra
  • Something Tells Me - Tiger Moon

Trivia

  • The 23-year-old Seigner and the 56-year-old Polański married a year after the premiere.
  • One of the policemen is played by Yves Rénier, who later also played the leading role in the television series Commissioner Moulin in France .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Filming locations according to IMDb
  2. ↑ March 21, 2010: Frantic. Photographic comparison of some of the filming locations back then and in 2010 on a website about Paris as the location for various films, accessed on September 16, 2013 (French)
  3. List of theatrical releases in different countries according to IMDb
  4. Financial data according to IMDb
  5. Frantic. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on August 15, 2019 .
  6. Frantic at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  7. An American in Paris: Roman Polanski's new thriller “Frantic” in Der Spiegel from August 22, 1988
  8. ^ Entry in the Lexicon of International Films