Mesrine

Two films appeared last year in France and this year in the United States about the life of Jacques Mesrine. The films are two parts of a single story, the rise and fall of France's most well known gangster, a man who began his adult life by choosing to be a criminal but grew to regard himself rather as someone chosen. Beyond this we might begin to describe him with a list of, let's say, achievements: French veteran of the Algerian war; bank robber; thief; author; libertine; part time revolutionary; orator; murderer; prison escapist. Still today all of these achievements are hotly contested, save one. Throughout his career Mesrine displayed an unrivaled ability to break out of jail. He broke out of high and low security prisons. He broke out of Paris' "La Sante" prison, stayed in Paris for a little while, and immediately went back to heists, which is basically the equivalent of breaking out of Alcatraz, swimming to shore and then opening up a bar in North Beach. He broke out of a previously impenetrable prison in Quebec, only to drive right back armed to the teeth and attempt to break back in to break out the guys who had helped him break out. He even broke out of a full courtroom, while on trial, but not until the (overflowing) court could hear a litany of his, let's say, accolades.

Achievements, accolades and acclaim are the essence of a man openly obsessed with his resume. Mesrine writes an autobiography (in which he admits to committing murder, while in prison awaiting trial), sets up a profile interview with a popular French paper and, in perhaps his most revealing scene in the film, lambastes a police interrogator for mispronouncing his name- the "s" is silent. Vincent Cassel, who is best known in the States for his role as Danny Ocean's blithely European anti-hero in the film's latest two installments and as a sneering, hapless, impotent Russian gangster opposite Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. In short, he has not been flattered by the English speaking world, which is a pity. On paper Mesrine is his most American leading role, and by the violent tenor of his voice and the overproduction of his expressions he acts as though he is aware of it. This is a bit sad, since he has shown riveting subtlety in the heated, enigmatic Sur Mes Levres where he plays an ex convict reentering society, alongside a woman whose deafness renders her quite lost in it. They both discover virtues in their deficiencies, although not in any way they could celebrate publicly, which covers them in a weighty blanket of silence; real crime is quiet, mysterious and antisocial.

Mesrine, on the other hand, fills the world with noise. He shouts, screams, shoots and shakes. When words don't suffice he speaks with his hands, and with his gun, often all at the same time. French gangsters, it appears, talk a lot. And I mean a lot; Mesrine speaks Spanish (to pick up women, successfully) and English (to American police, less successfully) and even picks up some Quebecois slang in Montreal (mid bank robbery, at that). While arguing with his wife (consequence of an adventure into Spain) he spurts out sentences in French, then in Spanish, then in French (as she responds in Spanish, French and then Spanish) ending in a violent eruption (in French) as he forces his pistol into her mouth and holds it there, long after he's finished speaking. He talks so much that by the middle of the second part you haven't really any idea what he cares about, or even what he stands for. It's no surprise then that he looks most confident when breaking out of jail; nothing can be lost in translation.

Unsurprisingly, these scenes (the break-out scenes) are done with the greatest diligence; they provide the body of the plot (his deepest friendships are made, begun or solidified in the planning and execution of his break outs) and grant the audience some momentary catharsis. And of course, they shift the focus away from whatever he had done to get put in there in the first place. Such shifting is sadly underused in the film. The whole project attempts to do justice to the man's complexity, mystery and charm by overwhelming the screen with his presence. What is left is an actor and director who, like their subject, don't know exactly what to do with their bounty of talent.

The American

The American is a misleading title; very little of the film's main character, an elusive assassin played by George Clooney, recalls America. Jack, as he is first called, is seen first at a cabin in quiet, rural Sweden cupping a glass of wine and he later moves on to a silent medieval Italian town so old and austere it seems itself an antique. He speaks little and dresses in rusty, dark tones, sporting Italian accessories. Nationality itself, as far as the plot is concerned, seems more a matter of landscape than politics. The director, Anton Corbijn, whose repeated geometric patterned village-scapes and broad, flat monochromatic squares of grass, snow and sky recall early Mondriaan, actually is Dutch. Even the opening credits swelled with Italian names. Knowing none of these things going into the film, and seeing the title and Clooney's art deco, suited silhouette on the poster, chasing down the end of the summer season with a Walther PPK, you might be surprised by what follows.

Corbijn is a photographer by profession and it shows in this cinematography; often characters seem the background of a larger portrait of a moody room, an empty bar or forested stream. The assassin, who goes by Edward-sometimes-once in Italy, pretends to be a photographer. So begins a long meditation on the complicated juxtaposition of photographers with their subjects. The assassin, like the photographer, fits nicely into this structure: he must get close to his subject but not so close as to obscure his perspective and thereby ruin the job. Both exist just barely outside of the world which they handle, fondling a flame that will either burn them or fade away. The American deals more than anything else with that peculiar aloofness, which turns out to be somewhat un-American.

This aloofness reveals itself in the slow ritual of work. His job is to make a specialized rifle, which leads into a thorough display of the kind of things otherwise hidden in action films: waiting, watching, scrounging for parts, and then patiently assembling the rifle itself. The particular style of his work, and the way it is filmed, assumes a decidedly European flavor. He never looks out of place; never makes a false step and speaks passable Italian. When he meets his contact at the bank of a stream to test the rifle he brings picnic fare as a cover. As he empties the bottle of Muscatto his contact points out that the wine they are not drinking has been chilled. The American shrugs and says, "Italian Police."

Like photography, whose work only minimally requires the actual taking of photographs, assassination seems to seldom involve the actual taking of lives. Preparation, and recuperation, occupy most of the assassin's time. When he is not meeting or calling contacts, he files, hammers, melds, fits, and polishes. Only a few steps away from his work desk, he does similar work on his own body, which looks as lean as the film does. These reflections, like those of the mirrored work of photography and assassination, pervade the action. What seems formally like minimalism-sparse dialogue, stylized silence, taciturn streets- becomes much grander taken all together: loneliness assumes a more austere character; aloofness seems essential for art, not only art-making. Austerity and reticence are not exactly inviting characteristics, and the collective sigh (or groan) released by the theatergoers as the film faded to black recalled the sounds of having been rejected. One man behind me began a subdued sort of angry shouting. The couple beside me, who arrived happily enough, looked as though they had just broken up. My grandmother went out of her way to contact me the next day to tell me not to go see it. I certainly felt odd as the final credits appeared, as though I'd been caught in a building moments before it collapsed.