Garde à Vue | |
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Directed by | Claude Miller |
Produced by |
Georges Dancigers Alexandre Mnouchkine |
Written by | Claude Miller Michel Audiard Jean Herman |
Music by | Georges Delerue |
Cinematography | Bruno Nuytten |
Edited by | Albert Jurgenson |
Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Garde à Vue is a 1981 French film directed by Claude Miller and starring Romy Schneider, Michel Serrault, Lino Ventura and Guy Marchand. It is based on the British novel Brainwash, by John Wainwright.
It won the César Award for Best Writing, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. The film had 2,098,038 admissions in France and was the 17th-most-attended film of the year.
Jérôme Martinaud, a wealthy, influential attorney in a small French town who falls under suspicion for the rape and murder of two little girls. He is the only suspect, but the evidence against him is circumstantial. As the city celebrates New Year's Eve, the police led by Inspector Antoine Gallien, who is investigating the double rape/murder case, brings the lawyer in for questioning; at first politely, and then less so, as the interrogation team consisting of Inspectors Gallien and Marcel Belmont chips away at the suspect's alibi. They interrogate him for hour after hour while Martinaud continues to maintain his innocence. We learn all about the evidence; we meet Martinaud's wife Chantal who tells Gallien about the rift between them and the origin of it, which may be an eight-year-old girl (Camille) Martinaud was in love with. On the face of overwhelming evidence and feeling let down by his wife, Martinaud confesses to the two rapes and murder. However a fresh corpse inside the boot of a stolen car, and the car's owner turns out to be guilty of the crime - exonerating Martinaud. Martinaud leaves the police station and finds his wife, who has committed suicide.
Garde à Vue was remade in 2000 as Under Suspicion.