Coup de Torchon

Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon is a bizarre gem of a film. Philippe Noiret is the Police Chief in Bourkassa, in East Africa. However, he's a complete loaf, who is, for the most part, indifferent towards his job and the duties it asks. To one of the pimps early on, he says "you know I never arrest anyone unless I have to. I have enough troubles of my own." He gets no respect from anyone in town, concordantly, and is constantly hassled by two pimps who believe that have the right to, because they pay him off monthly. Bothered by this, he goes to a friend in a neighboring town, seeking advice, and his friend shows him to be more assertive. Naturally, he finds the pimps and, after humiliating them for his own amusement, he shoots them both and dumps them in the river. From there, things kind of spiral out of control in this morally ambiguous film.

It's at times hysterically funny and, at other times, brutally violent. It very often goes from one to the other in a matter of seconds. The camera whips around just as quickly as the mood does. It's almost never static, and is constantly panning from side to side, up and down, whipping around between characters. In one early scene, a man drags his wife out into the street and beats her in broad daylight, right outside the barber shop where Lucien is getting a shampoo. The man working there asks if he hears it, and he says that he must have water in his ears. While this is going on, you can see the beating occurring outside via a mirror above the sink. After finishing up his shampoo, he can now hear the beating, but it's wound down by the time he leaves the shop. Soon, you discover the woman that was being brutalized was his own mistress.

It's an intriguing film, which doesn't answer nearly all the questions it asks. However, it's hilarious, shocking, and thought-provoking.