From director Robert Bresson (Pickpocket, Au Hasard Balthazar), this film featuring as one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die in the book was one I was naturally looking forward to watching, despite not knowing much about it at all, but that didn't matter. Basically a father refuses to give a young man his monthly allowance, demanding more he claims he needs it to pay a school debt, and he doesn't convince his mother either, so he pawns his watch off who provides with a forged 500 franc note, and he is seen perusing some nude art as well. The counterfeit note is taken by the boys to a photo shop where they pretend they want to buy a picture frame so they can exchange the fake note for the real change they will get, obviously afterwards the co-manager spots it is a fraud and tells of his partner for not noticing, it has happened to her twice. The opportunity for a person holding a counterfeit to be caught arises when gas man Yvon Targe (Christian Patey) pays for a restaurant bill, he is arrested but not long after let go, but he does lose his job, and in need of money he helps a friend as a getaway driver in a bank robbery. The robbery goes awry and Yvon is arrested and he is sentenced to three years in prison, and while there he suffers hearing about his daughter dying and his wife writing to him that she is starting a new life elsewhere and therefore leaving him. Yvon has nothing when he is released from prison, and he straight away robs the tills of hotel keepers and murders them as well, he finds help from a kind woman and her family, but he eventually kills them all with an axe, which he goes to a police officer in a restaurant to confess and he is arrested. Also starring Sylvie Van den Elsen as Grey Haired Woman, Michel Briguet as Grey Haired Woman's Father, Caroline Lang as Elise Targe, Vincent Risterucci as Lucien, Béatrice Tabourin as Woman photographer, Didier Baussy as Man photographer, Marc Ernest Fourneau as Norbert and Bruno Lapeyre as Martial. I will be honest and say that occasionally I drifted off in the plot and couldn't understand absolutely everything going on, but there were enough interesting scenes of the fraudulent activities and such things as manipulation going to keep you watching, so it is a worthwhile crime drama. Very good, in my opinion!
Review of L'Argent
