The book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is where I found this French film, it had a good sounding title and was rated well by critics, so I looked forward to what it would offer. Basically in Paris, France, young postman Jules (Frédéric Andréi) lives a bohemian lifestyle, and he has a small circle of friends, but more than anything he is a great fan of opera, especially the beautiful, celebrated and exceptional American opera singer Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez). Cynthia has never had her voice or performances recorded, and refuses to do so, Jules attends her latest performance, and being obsessive secretly and illegally records it on cassette tape, he also steals the gown she wore from her dressing room. One night Jules is travelling on his moped, prostitute Nadia Kalonsky (Chantal Deruaz) drops another tape into his bag, it contains the prostitute's testimony about high-ranking police Inspector Jean Saporta (Jacques Fabbri), as the boss of various rackets, she is murdered after the drop. Jules is now in danger from Taiwanese gangsters seeking the Hawkins tape, and from Saporta's enforcers who want the testimony, inadvertently tangled in a conspiracy of murder he finds refuge with his new friends, mysterious bohemian Serge Gorodish (Richard Bohringer) and his muse young Vietnamese-French woman Alba (Thuy An Luu). Feeling guilty, Jules returns Hawkins's dress, she is initially angry, but does forgive him and is intrigued by his adoration of her, they form a kind of romantic relationship, she meanwhile is being blackmailed by the Taiwanese into recording for them, claiming they have a copy of her performance. Saporta sends his henchmen to take care of Jules and the testimony tape, there is a chase through the PArisian subways, Jules is rescued by Gorodish, but he is almost killed by Saporta himself when returning home, but Gorodish saves him again and forces Saporta to fall down an elevator shaft. In the end Jules plays the tape of Cynthia's performance for her, she is nervous as she has never heard herself sing, and all the crime gangster and corruption stuff seems to disappear and things settle. Also starring Roland Bertin as Simon Weinstadt, Gérard Darmon as Spic, Dominique Pinon as Le Curé, Jean-Jacques Moreau as Krantz and Patrick Floersheim as Zatopek. It is a simple story, a bootlegged recording tape and a tape containing incriminating evidence getting mixed up, and the innocent bystander caught in the middle, it does get a bit in experimentation of style, but it has great camera-work and imagery throughout, and the operatic music is always a joy to listen to, all in all it is a compelling cult crime drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film. Very good!