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Serie
Noir
The title Serie Noire refers to
a popular French mystery series, and literally
means "Black Series." The story is based
on American author Jim Thompson's hardboiled
detective story A Hell of a Woman
and is close in spirit to the U.S. film
noir mysteries of the 1940s. Frank Poupart
(Patrick Dewaere) is a 30-year-old loser,
a salesman who is barely scraping by whose
wife has just left him "just to think things
over." He meets Mona (Marie Trintignant),
a quiet, dreamy 15-year-old girl whose aunt
has offered her to him for his sexual pleasure
in return for a sweater. They become lovers
and both of them see a way out of their
impoverished dead-end existence when Mona
tells him that her aunt (who is also her
landlady) has a large stash of money hidden
away. They decide to kill her, and also
kill a Greek boxer who owes Frank money,
making it look like a murder/suicide. When
Frank's wife returns to him, eager to begin
their marriage again, he kills her out of
sheer frustration. Later he is blackmailed
by Staplin (Bernard Blier), his employer,
and is left with no loot, no wife, three
heinous crimes on his hands and a clueless
adolescent girlfriend.
video source quality rating: B
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| Language: French w/ Subtitles |
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