LA SALAMANDRE Movie Review

The Salamander

The debut of Swiss director Alain Tanner is a funny and assured little comedy with a sharp, stinging aftertaste. When a journalist (Jean-Luc Bideau) notices an item in the paper about a young woman who's been accused by her uncle of attempting to kill him, he decides that the incident would make a swell made-for-TV movie. He contacts a novelist friend of his (Jacques Denis)—a real writer—to see if he can help him whip it into something marketable. With the novelist searching for an “emotional truth,” and the journalist looking for what actually happened, we're left with the alleged perpetrator herself—an angry, defiant handful of a woman (Bulle Ogier) who's completely fed up with all of it. If we don't ever learn the absolute truth about why a gun went off the day her uncle was wounded, we sure do learn about the explosive, unpredictable, and erotically rebellious young woman who claims that it was all a misunderstanding. La Salamandre is the film that put both Tanner and Swiss cinema on the map; it is, ironically enough, a dark and lively comedy about the explosive consequences of trying to remain neutral—particularly when you're crazy.

NEXT STOP … The Middle of the World, Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, Maitresse

1971 119m/B SI Bulle Ogier, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jacques Denis; D: Alain Tanner; W: Alain Tanner, John Berger; M: Patrick Moraz. VHS NVF