Product Details

• Actors: Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Wadeck Stanczak, Nicolas Giraudi, Jean-Claude Adelin
• Directors: André Téchiné
• Writers: André Téchiné, Pascal Bonitzer, Olivier Assayas
• Producers: Alain Terzian
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.20:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Kino International
• DVD Release Date: September 4, 2007
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000SIWHB4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,535 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Scene of the Crime" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

SCENE OF THE CRIME - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lost souls try to find their way, January 26, 2008

By 

LVLMLeah (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Scene of the Crime (DVD)

I saw this movie years ago and I remember that I enjoyed it and felt intrigued by it but felt a bit disappointed by the ending. My question at that time was, why such an ending?

Having seen that this film was re-released on DVD, I bought it and watched with the desire to see what it was about this story that culminates to such an ending. This movie is basically about lost souls whom are all trying to fit into worlds that they don't inherently relate to and the consequences of trying to do so.

Thomas is a young moody and troubled boy who is a victim in his parents divorce and is trying to find his place in the situation. He lies, causes trouble, has no friends and brutally and honestly says what he thinks just to piss people off. One day he accidentally happens upon a young thief hiding out in a crypt in the local cemetery and this thief threatens to harm him if he doesn't bring him money. Being scared, Thomas takes some money to this man, but another thief is there and tries to kill Thomas. The first thief saves Thomas by killing the second thief, his partner in crime. Thomas tells his mother what happened, but she doesn't believe him as most don't, because he's a known liar.

Lili, Thomas' mother, is a woman who is in a legal fight to keep Thomas from the father, who wants to take him from her. She owns a club that the locals don't like and has a reputation as being a bit different. Her parents, especially her mother who is all about being proper, keep trying to get her back with her ex husband, a man whom she despises and who feels no problem about using her vulnerability in wanting to keep their son, to force himself on her.

Feeling lost and depressed, Lili constantly struggles between her desire to keep her son, which means she has to feign provincial normality, and wanting to be who she really is, someone who does not fit into that mold. When the thief shows up at her bar, she finds herself attracted to him in a way that she hasn't felt up until now because of her constant stifling of who she is. Both she and thief find something in each other that they both relate too and need, and come together. The consequence of this attraction though, is something that will change everyone's life forever.

This film was written and directed by Andre Techine, whom I've mentioned before is one of my favorite directors. He brings to this film his usual insight and ability to access and express the psychology and human nature of the characters, which is as profound as usual.

What I loved about this film, as I do many French films, is that the ending follows the theme of the story and is not fixed, nor does it try to pacify the audience with an unrealistic good feeling. The characters are all in a flux, all reacting to each other and events and making choices according to who they are and their unconscious psychological needs. For me, the second viewing of this film, many years later, gave me insight into why Lili does what she does in the end, and it makes sense to me even if it's unsettling.

I don't think this is one of the best films of Techine or Deneuve; however there was something about the quiet complexity of it that had a huge appeal to me and it's become one of my favorite films.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Scene of the Crime, January 18, 2008

By 

Lee, Ti-tsai "Cinema Richie" (Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scene of the Crime (DVD)

In comparison with his later but more mature films, Techine's "Scene of the Crime" is more like a practice piece in the mode of Claude Chabrol. Like "Wild Reeds", "My Favorite Season", and "Strayed", this thriller is set in rural France, the supposedly ideal landscape for impressionist paintings. However, underneath its idyllic and serene exterior lies genuinely shocking but not entirely suspenseful undercurrents intricately interweaving Lili ( played by Catherine Deneuve, the ever gorgeous and increasingly resourceful actress as she is aging ), Martin ( played by one of Techine's regulars in the 80s, the moody actor Wadeck Stanczak, whose portrayal of an escaped criminal is too predictably sentimental and unbelievably one-sided ), Alice ( played by Claire Nebout, whose feral facade and wild gesture is indelibly sensual but whose threesome relaionship with Martin and his accomplice, another escaped prisoner whom Martin accidentlly killed during their brawl over Thomas, is unconvincingly pathological ), Thomas ( Lili's son, played marvelously by newcomer, Nicholas Giraudi),Lili's mother ( played by the legendary Danielle Darrieux, whose stunning "Madame" in Max Ophuls' " Madame de...." is one of the highlights in her long career) , Lili's ex-husband, Maurice ( his projecting of home movie on the wall or on Lili looks contrived ), and Lili's old dad ( Jean Bousquet).

The screenplay was written by Techine, along with another two important figures in French cinema after the New Wave, Pascal Bonitzer and Oliver Assayas. Under these cineastes' influence, the movie is replete with noir allusions ( Ms. Deneuve plays a bar owner, which is a strong echo of noir classic "Mildred Pierce") and a parady of or a play on noir conventions ( the mother-daughter rivalry is turned to son-father competition for mother's attention ). Martin, the initial threat to the stability of the family, is eventually the only one who can loosen the close bond between Lili and her son. Another potential savior, father Sorbier, turns out to be a barrier to better understanding of these people, in particular, Thomas and his friends and family.

The whole film captures some level of complexities in human psychology and absurdities in human condition, but overall, it is paled by psycho-thrillers of Chabrol at his best and Ozon's suspense-thriller gems steeped in wacky queerness, let alone Hitchcock's masterpieces, like " Vertigo", "The Birds",and " The Rear Window". Judging from Techine's later films, his universe is revealed to be full of profound observations of human psyches, such as " Alice and Martin", as well as tinged with a "juicy", self-reflexive, reflective and most importantly, honest gaze at exoticism and racial fetishism, prominently in films like " Changing Times", and "The Witnesses". Watching this film made by Techine in 1986, I gladly find that he is maturing wisely and sincerely as he is advancing in years!