Où est passé Tom? (1971) User Reviews

Liberty is a word which has not the same meaning to every one ...

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 8 September 2020]

José Giovanni's most ambitious work, "où est passé Tom " ,in spite of great qualities , is a confusing movie .It's a long way from the immediate demonstration of this director's "le rapace" (1968) to the laboured mechanism of the unsung "où est passé Tom?" .

Tom is a pacifist ,a man who lives in harmony with mother nature : the cinematography by Pierre-William Glenn is splendid indeed : Giovanni was a mountaineer ,a cousin of mine once told me he did mountain-climbing with him ,and one feels his love for the wild landscapes of the peaks . You'd never guess that he is part of an association whose purpose is to help free the political prisoners : one sees him at the borders ,welcoming the dissidents .One of his colleagues , a passionaria flesh on the bone , urges the members of this society (set in Genova ,Switzerland) to put nonviolence aside and to take the plunge :bumping off a dictator;it steers us back onto the very subject of "le rapace" ,in which Lino Ventura played a mercenary who agreed to do that job for dough .

There the comparison ends ; Tom's dreams begin to torment him : but what can a peaceful guy ,who has never handled a gun in his whole life (he was probably a conscientious objector),do ? Up comes the wonderful Alexandra (when she appears , who can tell that the beautiful Alexandra Stewart was ever so lovingly filmed?) : perhaps, the late sixties:/early seventies zeitgeist ,woman's lib movement ,can explain this strange circumstance : this extremely handsome lady will teach the pacifist how to shoot !Stewart was the unfortunate heroine of Giovanni's first effort "la loi du survivant" and her part here is too underwritten ,although we're spared the obligatory bed scene . ( Unlike what many false precis of the movie claim, she does not help Tom during his mission ,she tries to prevent him from doing it)

Then ,there are many gaps ,many implausibilities in the screenplay : why for instance doesn't Tom kill the dictator in the cemetery ? In this country , anyone can just walk right in ; when it comes to being naive ,nay stupid , Tom's passionate colleague wins hands down : doesn't she ask if one can visit the fortress which she knows is a jail for political prisoners ? Tom , a rookie as far as fighting is concerned , single-handedly takes over the fortress ,after spending agonizing days in a dungeon !Rambo is not far away!

But Giovanni (whose eventful life was evoked by the precedent user ,a French cinema connoisseur) regains his soul in the last sequences which justify the sentence I quote in my title :freedom is a relative concept, freedom does not make you totally free , when you believe in the fate of your country and its oppressed people ; although he's been betrayed by one of his prison mates ,Paul Crauchet 's character forgives him and only asks for his shirt ,should he die before him. The only motive of a fugitive is to enjoy the sun.

All in all, bewildered and perhaps bitter , Tom ends up in Chico,the young idealist of "Le rapace" 's situation .

As for the country where the action takes place , the bullfight may suggest Spain before the death of Franco ,but politically the movie remains vague , concentrating on an idealist whose principles are hardly put to the test.

Where was this film?

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 7 September 2020]

This is a José Giovanni's film which I search since forty years; never aired on TV channels, or maybe ONCE in the seventies and I am not sure, and never released on VHS nor DVD, only in theaters in 1971. Maybe a copyright issue, we never know with so complicated matters. You have some French films in this case, but I could understand why, because of the unknown directors or actors. Even LA TRAQUE, was at least aired once or twice during the early eighties. This one, no. So, useless to say that I am more than pleased to, at last, see and comment it. This is not a masterpiece, for instance I preferred LA LOI DU SURVIVANT, adapted from his own - Giovanni- novel, or LES LOUPS ENTRE EUX, LE GITAN, LA SCOUMOUNE, also from his books and directed by him, but this one is worth watching, even if you are a fan of the French Samuel Fuller: writer, novelist, screen writer, and director of his own stuff. Remember SHOCK CORRIDOR, DEAD PIGEON ON BEETHOVEN STRASSE, BIG RED ONE, where great Sam was novelist and director. Not so usual. Sorry for those details but it was important to present José Giovanni, who, as Fuller, was a tough and rough adventure man, who suffered much in his lite time; he knew what he talked about. This very film is adapted from a Bill Reade's novel, which I appreciated more than this film. I have not an enough good memory to remember every detail of the novel to analyse deep enough. In this movie, you have the great opportunity to hear one more François de Roubaix's music, so typical of this too soon disappeared composer. The score brings mainly of the whole atmosphere of the film; this helps a lot, believe me. De Roubaix was a accomplice of Robert Enrico - who could have made this film, so close to his usual topics - and Giovanni too: LES AVENTURIERS, LA SCOUMOUNE, DERNIER DOMICILE CONNU, HO (from a Giovanni's book and adapted by Enrico), UN ALLER SIMPLE, BOULEVARD DU RHUM, LE VIEUX FUSIL, the two lasts made by Enrico. And I forgot LES GRANDES GUEULES, the most know of Giovanni's novel and, as you can guess, adapted by Enrico. You find in this feature many things important to Giovanni, and that you'll find in other films from him or Enrico's: mountain settings and climbing, political matters, fight for freedom, combat against tyranny - don't forget Giovanni was condemned to death after the war and released by the French president. See for instance DEUX HOMMES DANS LA VILLE or UN ALLER SIMPLE, also movies denouncing injustice. But Giovanni is not Costa Gavras.