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COUP DE TORCHON
1981
Director
Bertrand Tavernier
Starring
Isabelle Huppert
Philippe Noiret
Stéphane Audran
Runtime
128 minutes
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In this pitch-black adaptation of Jim Thompson’s 1964 pulp novel Pop. 1280, Lucien Cordier is an inept and timid police chief in a sleepy French colonial outpost in Senegal. Withstanding daily humiliations by his wife and harassment by two local pimps, Lucien is pushed to his limit, and transforms into a heartless killer. Part absurdist comedy, part neo-noir, COUP DE TORCHON is a macabre exploration of power, masculinity, and societal decay, co-starring a luminous Isabelle Huppert!
"Bertrand Tavernier’s rowdy, broad, unsettling moral tale follows screwball comedy out to its other side as madness: you're never sure whether what you're watching is high spirits or insanity." - Dave Kehr
"With equal touches of Kafka, Genet, and Beckett, director Bertrand Tavernier's brilliant adaptation takes place in an ethical no-man's-land. It might seem impossible to make a humorous movie that seriously embraces nihilism. But in the hands of a master like Tavernier, even ambiguity can be entertaining." – Michael Dare
Restored in 4K from the original negative by Studiocanal at L'Image Retrouvée, with color correction by Jean Achache on behalf of Bertrand Tavernier. Funding by the CNC. A Rialto Pictures release.
"Bertrand Tavernier’s rowdy, broad, unsettling moral tale follows screwball comedy out to its other side as madness: you're never sure whether what you're watching is high spirits or insanity." - Dave Kehr
"With equal touches of Kafka, Genet, and Beckett, director Bertrand Tavernier's brilliant adaptation takes place in an ethical no-man's-land. It might seem impossible to make a humorous movie that seriously embraces nihilism. But in the hands of a master like Tavernier, even ambiguity can be entertaining." – Michael Dare
Restored in 4K from the original negative by Studiocanal at L'Image Retrouvée, with color correction by Jean Achache on behalf of Bertrand Tavernier. Funding by the CNC. A Rialto Pictures release.