See How They Fall

Jacques Audiard’s first feature as a director has been regarded as his darkest. In his eclectic style, Audiard combines a crime thriller and road movie genre within a film noir setting. The film’s unusual double narrative structure proves and effective and engaging tool. In the first plot-line, Simon, a middle-aged salesman (Jean Yanne), leaves his family to track down the killer of a friend. In the latter, we follow the developing relationship between a cynical con man, Marx (played with typical class by Jean-Louis Trintignant), and a naive young protégé Johnny (Mathieu Kassovitz a year before he directed La Haine), who befriends him. Regarde les hommes tomber initiates occurring themes in Audiard’s work, such as social exclusion, moral ambivalence and male identity, as well marking a distinctive style of gritty thriller infused with poetic moments that makes his work so effortlessly watchable. The film earned Audiard the César for Best Director and established his reputation as a filmmaker of the highest excellence, with every feature since (A Self Made Hero, Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and most emphatically A Prophet) garnering glowing returns and praise from audiences and critics alike.