Le Pardon

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Audience Member Several negative or at most lukewarm reviews should have been a warning for me to avoid “Le grand pardon”, but I decided to be obstinate. Robert Hossein has a small part in this movie, which virtually means that wild horses won’t be able to drag me away from it. Unfortunately his part remains limited to one scene of some five minutes and a death announcement later on. So much for the entertainment. No really, “Le grand pardon” is just not entertaining at all. The story is fuzzy and incoherent, if we can speak of a story at all, for the film is little more than an atmospheric description dragging on for more than two hours. One of the only clear themes to be distilled from it is overall deterioration: starting out from joyful festivities, the Beitoun empire is slowly but surely beginning to crumble. If the police has no means available to eradicate the Jewish pied-noir mafia (Commissaire Duché (Jean-Louis Trintignant) may play the mysterious smartass cop, but he does little more than just stand and watch), they will eventually destroy themselves by annoying either the rival Arabs or their own people. Internal strife and (dis)loyalty are very important topics in this movie, as is to be expected with mafia. Alexandre Arcady must have had great plans when he decided to make this film, but unfortunately his efforts didn’t work out. Beautifully filmed as the Jewish celebrations and the gang war scenes may be, they fail to appeal to the audience. Towards the end you have long stopped caring about who will be shot through the head this time and by whom. “Le grand pardon” is all impression but no narratological substance. One even begins to wonder about the relevance of some characters to the plot (e.g. Anny Duperey’s and Richard Bohringer’s characters, who both have a clear function, but receive far too little screen time to fulfill their promise). Needless to elaborate on my expectations of “Le grand pardon II” (1992). Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member i used to love that movie 15 years ago. but it turns out this is not a good movie... Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Le Pardon

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