Le temps de mourir (1970) User Reviews

strange year 1970

[christopher-underwood · 5/10 · 26 October 2013]

Having been watching some rather obscure movies from the late sixties through to the eighties, of late, I have come to the conclusion that around 1970, the French in particular, made some very odd ones. Moon And Midnight was one and this is another. Seemingly low budget yet still able to secure the services of Anna Karina and Jean Rochefort this is described as 'sci-fi tinged'. Maybe, but pretentious would be another apt description. Strangely, having just watched The Lickerish Quartet, this is another film with a found film within that seems to foretell what other participants in the film will partake of. The main problem is that there is no attempt to involve the viewer, other than with repeated imagery, which can end up being more alienating. never mind the appalling soundtrack that crashes all about.

Worth watching only for the lovely Anna Karina and veteran actor, Jean Rochefort in one of his earlier films. I can't imagine either actor got paid for this - strange year 1970 worldwide but in France in particular. We can probably blame the student uprising of a couple of years previous.

Excellent experimental work

[pipeoxide · 9/10 · 31 December 2014]

Anna Karina is a terrible actress but she doesn't grate on the nerves too much here. Cremer and Rochefort are enough to merit a viewing of TdM -- one as the potential-victim, the other as the potential- murderer -- they are perfect.

Although exploring a banal concept, the essence of the question TdM asks is relevant. And so, there are numerous interpretations of the ending and the overall proposition the film makes -- that the 3 characters (Karina / Cremer / Rochefort) are entangled in a perpetual, cyclical, re-occurring event: Cremer's murder at the hands of Rochfort and the circumstances leading into it.

A mysterious, foreboding tape has been brought to Cremer by an ethereal amnesiac riding in on horseback (Karina) - who feels she knows the men she meets although they,in turn, do not know her...at least consciously. Cremer has clearly forgotten making love to this strange woman in some parallel realm. An unpleasant corporate type (Rochefort) is shown shooting Cremer on this tape. So Cremer sends his goons to kidnap Rochefort and get to the bottom of things -- somehow. How could have Rochefort killed someone before he actually commits the act itself? Can a future event be predicted?! Oh, and there's a supposedly ultra-sophisticated sentient being (like the iPhone of the day, I suppose) which fails to rescue Cremer from the said predicament...or maybe it's not his predicament but only (wait for it)...his fate!?

Good fun, this dusty print. The cinematography and general aesthetic of TdM is velvety smooth and full of gilded tapestries, massive geometric paintings, and of course, some thinly veiled criticism of the bourgeoisie.