Reviews

Many would remember the original 1938 Hitchcock movie, which deserves highest ranking of course, thinkng that this one is light and too 'American'.

But this 1979 release is nice and has a good rhythm and moreover it does not aims to emulate its ancient model.

It is a good comedy rendering of a very good story, with a good usage of the train as action setting.

I do not agree with some low ratings here, which, in my opinion, are due more to Hitchcock model than to this movie itself.

We saw it again in recent 2020s and we had a very good time, with no highbrows attitude of judging it a violation of the 'sacred master' work.

You will enjoy it as a intrigue movie of old times.

This film is really nice, without any anguish nor anxiety.

A necessary little gift these days.

It is a fairly linear film, with no particular jumps: a nice and not-so-young cleaning lady is hired by the art academy in Paris, École des Beaux Arts, and her life changes.

Art and the relative freedom that the teachers always suggest play a not secondary part in the construction of the new "consciousness" reached by our Marie, and this adds a pleasant touch to the story.

It is a film that conveys good humor, with some thoughts too.

The star Karin Viard is really part of the building of this movie, not only in its running time: she is actually present in every scene. But she gently transmits the whole mood of the movie.

You will stay through the credits to see a last scene, and at the end, in the "thanks" section, in facts, you will see that the first thanked name is hers, Karin Viard.

This "Chained" is very well realized: you FEEL everything, you are there, spying the life of this man which is behaving in the most wrong ways you could imagine, without any help to recover.

So it is like a "documentary", perfect in its representation and in transmission of the tragedy, but... I think that stories, and so movies too, should be better than life: they should give audience some directions to become better people, making see how a character could change his behaviour, his ideas, in order to quit despotism, machism, cruelty and egotism, reaching some empathy with all beloved significant others, wife and step-daughter.

Here we follow the tragical crumbling of the life of a policeman, which is obviously wrongdoing at many levels, professional, personal and sentimental... and nobody helps him.

So I think that this total despair is strongly wrong in a work of art.

The theme and its treatment are a bit 1966 age: free love and open couples, with the underlying condition that everybody can "experience" others sexually, since real and deep love is between man and wife.

But... When arrives a Phil, that can actually push off former "love", problems arise, and hausband get jealous.

But he's not fihgting with physical strenght, like the bulls he breeds; he accuses instead his friend of being unloyal... but actually Carlos at the beginning was not angry of his wife having sex with Phil.

So the story is pretty confused, while dialogues have parts of cold logic, to unfold and manage the situation.

In substance, the bottom line could be that Carlos wants to be sure that he is loved, and for that, he pushes his wife in bed with other men, checking out if she still loves him... It has to said that images are very intriguing, camera, mouvements and all visual aspects are very fine.