L'Air Du Crime on AllMovie

Ostensibly about the sudden disappearance of a businessman and the subsequent behavior of his wife Elena (Helen Surgere), his son Robert (Tcheky Karyo), and his accountant (Jean Bouise), this allegorical film is really a weighty statement on the nature of Swiss society. After her husband has disappeared, Elena takes over his business, but instead of nurturing it along she does just the opposite: she trashes it, step by step. Meanwhile, Robert asks Alice (Laura Morante), perhaps his father's lover, to help him look for his father and ends up losing his job with a Zurich orchestra because he can no longer cope. The accountant, in turn, is overwhelmed by the mother's actions, the disappearance of the father, and the son's emotional and psychological collapse. If director (Alain Klarer) is saying that there are serious problems at all levels of Swiss society, he is saying it too slowly, too didactically, and too abstrusely to entertain an average audience.