Scene of the Crime

Scene of the Crime (1986)

Genres - Drama, Crime  |   Sub-Genres - Melodrama, Crime Drama, Family Drama  |   Release Date - Jan 23, 1987 (USA)  |   Run Time - 90 min.  |   Countries - France  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Scene of the Crime (Le Lieu du Crime) begins with a quote from Great Expectations. Thirteen-year-old Nicolas Giraudi, picking flowers in a cemetery, is surprised by escaped criminal Wadeck Stanczak, who orders the boy to bring him some money. Displaying no signs of fear, Giraudi does what he is told, and as a "reward" his life is spared by the convict. Later on, Stanczak gets stinking drunk at a road house managed by Giraudi's mother, Catherine Deneuve. Fascinated by Stanczak, Deneuve arranges for the fugitive to take a room at a local hotel. On the day that Giraudi is to receive his first communion, his mother plans to run off with Stanczak. The climactic set-to between criminals and police has the negatory effect of separating Giraudi from his mother; on a more positive note, however, the boy has been drawn closer to his father Victor Lanoux, whom Deneuve despised. The dreamlike, new wave-ish Scene of the Crime is a lot more complex than this skeletal synopsis would suggest.

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Keywords

prison, bad-guy, captive, captor, convict, escape, extramarital-affair, investigation, killing, love, murder, son, widow/widower, woman