VIDOCQ

Paris, 1830: in the heart of a city shaken by popular uprisings and on the verge of civil war, Vidocq, a famous detective, disappears while, for several months, he has been hunting a dangerous killer who calls himself the Alchemist. His young biographer, Étienne Boisset, decides to avenge Vidocq's death and continue his investigation to name "the faceless killer"... Pitof, the French magician of special effects (he worked, among others, on "Joan of Arc" by Besson and "Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra" by Zidi), here makes his directorial debut, bringing to the screen a novella by Jean Christophe Grangé ("The Purple Rivers"). Like the almost contemporary "Belfagor" by Salomè, another character (really existed) dear to the French tradition is taken up, the ex-convict and adventurer Vidocq (Gérard Depardieu) who later became a police investigator; but director Pitof avoids falling into the same mistakes that had doomed the failure of "The Phantom of the Louvre", although he moves in a similar narrative and environmental context. The film depicts a dark and unsettling Paris in which a mysterious killer roams, a diabolical character who reaps victims, remaining always anonymous and unpunished; is he the Alchemist, the faceless man, a ghost, a sorcerer, a legend or perhaps just an elusive criminal? The film is visually very well-crafted and elaborate: all the exterior sets were partly reconstructed and partly enhanced with computer graphics by inserting palaces, alleys, streets, flames, lights and everything necessary. The result is discreetly fascinating, thanks above all to the director's aesthetic taste, aimed at transporting the viewer inside the film, although some contraindications are not lacking: in some sequences (especially those of the first two murders), the characters seem almost detached from the surrounding environment, as if they were moving inside a video game. Another original element of the film is represented by the framing: often the camera lingers on a character, follows him, moves with him and almost "bumps" into him, thus imparting a strong movement to the action but also a certain sense of "annoyance" to the viewer's eyes. Overall, the film is still appreciable and innovative, an investigative thriller contaminated by various horror elements that, at times, manages to entertain, intrigue and scare; in short, to arouse some emotion, and this, surely, is already a good result.