The Secret

Best known for his short film Incident at Owl Creek, Enrico here deals once more with a man at the end of his rope. Trintignant plays a fugitive from an institute who is befriended by an artistic couple (Noiret, Jobert), refugees from Paris now living a slightly dull life in the country. Suspense is generated somewhat needlessly through teasing the audience about Trintignant's sanity: is he a maniac on the loose, or as he claims, the victim of a government conspiracy? The film shamelessly litters red herrings along the way. More promisingly, it elsewhere displays (but does not explore) the philosophical anxieties that the French have so often found in American movies, leading to an increasing fatalism as events move towards a bleak conclusion. But too much is withheld from the audience by the film's sleights of hand, although Trintignant's worried performance counters one's graver doubts.