The Musician Killer

  • Greek Title Ο δολοφόνος μουσικός
  • English Title The Musician Killer
  • Original Title L'assassin musicien
  • Year: 1976
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Country: France
  • Duration: 124'
  • Director / Scriptwriter: Benoît Jacquot
  • Cinematography: Bruno Nuytten
  • Editing: Fanette Simonet
  • Cast: Anna Karina, Joël Bion, Philippe March, Hélène Coulomb, Gunars Larsens
  • Production: Sunchild Productions
  • Color: Color
  • Audio: Sound
  • Language: French
  • Format: 35mm
  • Subtitles: Greek
  • Print Source: Tamasa

Convinced that he could be the world's next greatest violinist, Gilles, a clarinetist in a provincial orchestra, moves to Paris where his failure to relate to any other person, except for a sick servant and her young daughter, leads him to a psychotic vicious circle. Inspired from Dostoievski, Benoît Jacquot's elliptical and austere debut feature initially was misinterpreted as the tribute of a respectful student to his formidable master, Robert Bresson. But its heavy and static filming rather points to Mizoguchi's dogma "one scene, one shot". Sadly it ends up as a study of the rigidity of acting, from which not even Anna Karina escapes in portraying the unhappy servant who holds the narrative together from slipping into a mechanical ballet of musical and discursive sequences.

- Nikos Savvatis


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