See How They Fall (1994) User Reviews (10)

A Very Unique and Mesmerizing Story

[film_ophile · 8/10 · 7 August 2010]

I just watched this last night, having been very intrigued by Audiard's other works, esp.the brilliant and somewhat indescribable Read My Lips. See How They Fall was indeed one of the more unusual stories I have seen in film. While the story has 4 main characters, it is the two most unassuming characters that anchor and propel the film. One is an over-the-hill depressive teddy bear of a salesman, Yanne. The other is a mentally slow/mentally challenged grown up child, Kassovitz. The former is searching for his only friend's killer; the latter is a puppy dog follower of a seedy petty criminal, Trintignant. (I've never seen Tr. in this kind of role. He is extremely convincing and completely revolting.) Most of the film builds the back story and follows the lives of the 2 pairs of friends. There are certainly elements of Midnight Cowboy and Of Mice and Men, but I was very pleased to see that the stories have many unexpected elements, mostly to do with Yanne, as he gradually leaves behind everything familiar to him and 'becomes' the quest to find his friend's killer. He moves obsequiously and with ease through worlds completely foreign to him, and the viewer's empathy is gradually drawn into the essence of who he is. One completely believes that he is who he is playing, and the same is true of Trintignant and Kassovitz.

The film's resolution occurs close to the end, when the 2 stories intersect. Before this, the film would have been greatly improved if 30% of it had been edited out, but the film's resolution is quick and perfect, like a gentle but effective 1-2 punch. In both Read My Lips and See How They Fall, Audiard shows a very unique way with unusual characters and their just-as-unusual stories. Both films are relatively quiet and contemplative, and the many silences lull the viewer into a distinct internal rhythm. Long after the films have ended, this rhythm stays on.

Jacques Audiard's debut

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 14 December 2010]

Jacques Audiard, a man that had written for the cinema with some degree of success, decided to try his hand at directing with this production. For this event he decided to adapt a Teri White novel, "Triangle", rather than create the scenario himself, which is a strange choice for a man that contributed original material up to this point. The results are mixed. The film shows elements of crime, suspense and in a way, it is a road movie.

We are given two narratives that interweave each other that in many aspects is more style than substance. The device serves to confuse the viewer. Nothing is clear until the end. How is Simon connected with Marx and Johnny, one wonders. Of course, it is revealed on the last minutes of the film. There are aspects of homosexuality in the relationship between Marx and Johnny, and it makes one wonder why Simon is so interested in finding out from a male hustler what goes on in his life.

Jean Yanne's Simon is the most interesting character in the film. He is a welcome presence in whatever vehicle he decided to appear. On the other hand, Jean-Louis Trintignant does not fare as well with his pushy Marx. Mathieu Kassovitz is an annoying presence in the way he was asked to play Johnny. Bulle Ogier is only seen briefly.

Gerald Sterin's dark photography is perfect for the dark atmosphere the director was trying to achieve. Alexandre Desplat's musical score works well within the context of the film.

Grim, Grungy Gallic Crime Film Interestingly Constructed

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 22 September 2019]

Two veteran stars bring weight to this grimy little drama with an unusual flashback structure (along with laconic captions), which despite the gorgeous Bulle Ogier appearing fleetingly as Jean Yanne's wife has strongly if unresolved homoerotic overtones.

Yanne, who serves as the film's weary cornerstone, sports a scruffy beard that makes him resemble Akim Tamiroff (who wouldn't have been at all out of place in the grungy urban hell director Jacques Audiard makes of modern Paris).

An interesting structure and mix of tones

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 7 July 2011]

While it doesn't all 'work', this is a more interesting partial failure than most people's complete successes.

An oddball mix of thriller, character study and very quirky comedy. It follows two parallel stories that finally intersect.

a) The unlikely, ultimately homo-erotic friendship between a small time con-man/drifter (Jean- Louis Trintignant), and the semi-retarded wanderer he meets on the road (Mathieu Kassovitz).

and b) a man's mid-life crisis when a cop friend is shot and left brain dead, leading him to give up everything, work, marriage, to try and find meaning in his life by finding the killers.

There are leaps of logic, but some very nice character moments as well. I liked it even better on 2nd viewing.

Tries but doesn't make it

[Angeneer · 6/10 · 14 June 2001]

This noir character study uses the plot only as a vehicle to explore its protagonists' world. Although it's an honest attempt and the actors do very well (Trintignant is a personal favorite anyway), the pace is too slow and tiring and the lack of action sometimes becomes evident. Sometimes words cannot generate interest by themselves.

great actors, brilliant dialog and excellent story

[zupatol · 10/10 · 11 August 2005]

This film is full of interesting ideas. Some scenes are truly hilarious. The dialogs are witty and colloquial. The tension in the film comes not so much from the 'murder mystery' plot as from the relationship between the characters. The film tells two stories in parallel.

The first story involves the characters played by Trintignant and Kassovitz. Trintignant is an ageing drifter, with a somewhat ridiculous macho toughness, who is followed by a naive young man played by Kassovitz with plenty of good-natured smiles. Many good moments in the film come from the contrast between the two characters, for example when Trintignant tries to teach Kassovitz how to be intimidating.

The second story tells how a salesman,played by Jean Yanne, gives up his job and his wife to find the murderer of a young friend. Yanne plays the part with a kind of aggressive irony. I wish I could describe this better.

After a while the viewer understands how both stories are connected and they meet indeed in the end, in a surprising but also logical ending.

The film is a successful mixture of the witty but superficial gangster films the director's father (the celebrated Michel Audiard) used to write, and the "typical french film" with lots of psychological depth and lots of care in the display of emotions.

brilliant acting, but, a nasty tale

[acebros-1 · 5/10 · 16 June 2012]

Disturbing story of the, I would say descent (though others might differ) of a middle-aged zhlub into an S-and-M-inflected homoerotic demimonde. Actors: Yanne is suitably opaque as his character Simon spirals further and further out of his accustomed orbit; the viewer is compelled to judge his interior changes by his actions -- which, after all, is what movies are all about, eh? Trintignant, perhaps the most intelligent actor of his generation, builds a complex and convincing character, and Kassovitz, perhaps the most intelligent actor of HIS generation, matches his thoroughness and his subtlety as Johnny, who really motivates the whole film -- it must have been a challenging and rewarding piece of work for all of them.

So, totally believable. That said....Simon moves from, eh, the normal pleasures and frustrations of a banal middle age, into a kind of depravity, not a pretty picture imho. Audiard is assiduously non-judgmental, and Simon seems satisfied at the end, so, disturbing....

Mediocre first effort from Audiard.

[Rockwell_Cronenberg · 5/10 · 3 March 2012]

As a massive fan of Jacques Audiard's work in the past decade, I was eager to check out his first directorial effort, See How They Fall. It wasn't a bad film by any means, but I have to admit I was disappointed. Co-written with his frequent collaborator Alain Le Henry, based on a novel by Teri White, it tells the story of Simon (Jean Yanne), a business-card salesman who hunts down the men that shoot his cop friend Mickey. It's a far-fetched concept, this mild-mannered schlub suddenly deciding to become a pulp investigator, but the black comedy tone that Audiard gives the film make it so that a stretch of the imagination isn't hard for the audience to conjure up.

Still, the story splits it's time between Simon and the homeless wandering duo of Marx and Johnny (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Mathieu Kassovitz), which is one of the few mistakes that it makes. There's a lack of balance in how compelling these men are, and whenever we were spending time with Simon I found myself just wanting to see more of Marx and Johnny. The two of them set up an interesting dynamic, with Marx being the grizzled old drifter who just wants to be alone and is only looking out for himself, while Johnny is the dim-witted lad with a heart of gold who takes a shine to Marx and will do anything for him. That relationship should have been the focal point of the film, but instead we spend the majority of our time with Simon on trying to track them down, a journey that isn't particularly engaging or memorable.

Audiard has worked in the crime genre for his entire career, but in the past decade with the films Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, he has evolved the field in a way that few others have done before. He's orchestrated fully realized worlds around deep, complex characters who walk a fine line of moral ambiguity, all conducted with his key eye for a gripping aesthetic style. See How They Fall isn't a bad film, but it's stripped of all the things that make Audiard one of the best filmmakers we have in modern cinema. The characters are quite thin for the large majority of the picture, only getting slight hints towards more layers but never being full developed, and the film is stylistically flat, despite it's best efforts. It doesn't have emotional resonance of Read My Lips, the thematic power of The Beat That My Heart Skipped or the scope of A Prophet.

There's an attempt to give it the kind of whip-flash editing structure that a lot of these independent crime films were accustomed to in the '90s, but it never really lands as strongly as some of them were able to accomplish. It's a fun little movie, with fine acting by the young Kassovitz and the veteran Trintignant, but overall there really isn't anything to set it apart and leave an impression. It's a pedestrian affair, but a mildly interesting first effort from the man who would evolve into the best crime filmmaker of the modern era.

The harder they fall

[dbdumonteil · 7 August 2006]

The very structure of the movie was original.Two apparently distinct plots .

One concerns two guys:Jean Yanne and his friend Mickey who has just been very seriously injured (gangland killing?).He is lying brain dead in a gloomy hospital and his friend keeps on talking to him.

The other one concerns two other guys:Trintignant and Kassovitz.The former spends most of his time with women -although the film has gay accents - ,the latter is a half-wit who has never sex and seems to be the pain in the neck for his mate.

This is par excellence the kind of movie the French critics love: a vague ambiguous screenplay,"deep " "meaningful" frames of mind and even pieces of information in the silent movies tradition.This is also par excellence the kind of movie which makes lots of people take to their heels when they hear about French movies.

Assets: All that concerns the first two guys is in the present tense.The adventures of the two others are a long flashback.Jean Yanne gives a strong performance as a jaded desperate man who's lost his last reason to live.On the other hand ,Trintignant overacts and,for the first time in his brilliant career ,is almost unbearable.

More pretentious than really exciting.

See How They Fail

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 15 May 2005]

This was the first film by Jacques Audiard whose father Michel wrote more than 120 screenplays, mostly pedestrian though he did work, for instance on Les Tontons Flinguers. Jacques himself eased his way into directing via writing and won a minor writing credit on Toni Marshall's Venus Beaute though it's difficult to imagine exactly what he contributed given that the world of his four feature films - he followed this with Un heros tres discret, Sure mes levres and this years De battre mon couer s'est arrete - is light years away from that of Marshall. On balance it's not a world I care much about though usually there's at least something to admire - Manu Devos for example - in each one with the possible exception of the last. In this debut he got to work with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jean Yanne and an elliptical plot that emerges like Kafka being proof-read by Faulkner. It takes a while but eventually we realize that Marx (Trintignant) is addicted to gambling but not, alas, to winning. To get out of the hole he reluctantly agrees to 'hit' someone but finds he can't do it so a younger man, Johnny (Matthieu Kassovitz) with learning difficulties, who has attached himself to Marx, volunteers to deputise, thus do people bond. Somewhere along the line Johnny wastes an undercover cop Mickey (Yvon Back) which disturbs Michey's friend Simon Hirsch (Jean Yanne) so much that he sets out on an individual crusade to track down the killers. Would that it were as simple as I've described it here but it seems that Audiard doesn't do straightforward we're fed information via an eye-dropper whilst incidentally exploring the world of homo-eroticism. Bulle Ogier, a major selling-point for me has a blink-and-you'll miss it cameo and that's about it. I'm glad I saw it but wouldn't necessarily go back for seconds.