L’Horloger de Saint-Paul launched Bertrand Tavernier’s remarkable career as a film director and proved enduring for good reasons: the story of father and son, its universal secret, has been told in terms of cinema that is also pure Simenon. The close reading of an “ordinary” crime leads out of the abyss into an insight into the most important relationships in life. The focus of this “ordinary” story is on the lack of contact between the clockmaker Michel Descombes and his son Bernard. The security guard of a factory has been killed, and Bernard is on the run with his girlfriend Liliane whom his father has never met. In other words, the father knows nothing about his son. The policeman understands more but has his limitations, as does the defence attorney, who sees here “a crime of passion” (in reaction to harassment, even rape). Bernard, when found, merely says that the “pig” got his just desserts. The young fugitives are convicted. They speak about having a baby and establishing a family. Father and son finally connect through prison bars. The chain of events remains fundamentally inexplicable. Words could only spoil a true connection. A touching text appears in the end credits: “Dedicated to Jacques Prévert”. In the title role we meet Philippe Noiret, about to become Tavernier’s favourite actor. Trudging forward he seems almost expressionless, but all the more effective in reflecting an inner chain of events. Essential also is the contribution of the cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn: the all-encompassing presence of his moving camera, gliding deeper into secret connections, compelling right from the fascinating and enigmatic shot of a burning car seen from the train window at night.

Peter von Bagh, from unpublished notes among his posthumous papers (2014), edited in English by Antti Alanen