Roberto Succo

Making his acting debut, Cassetti is frighteningly plausible as the real-life multiple killer of the title. He's first seen (years after the Italian cops discover of his parents' bodies) in a Toulon disco, where, he picks up a teenage girl who over the next few months shows remarkably little curiosity despite his strange and volatile behaviour. Indeed, his ability to continue killing, stealing and living out his strange fantasies is due partly to luck, partly to the shortcomings of others (including the cops), partly to his own extraordinarily uninhibited character. Kahn never opts for easy explanations but presents the facts coolly to subtly build up a portrait of the world where disorder rules, where notions of 'good' and 'evil' are finally so inadequate as to be meaningless, where even Succo's death can be seen as in some ways tragic. Tough, and very impressive indeed.