In director Nadine Trintignant’s Le voleur de crimes (Crime Thief), Jean-Louis Trintignant (her then-husband) stars as Jean Girod, a regular Joe fighting his own delusions. When Jean witnesses a young woman’s suicide, he writes to the police, claiming the death as his doing. As the cops begin to close in, he sinks deeper into his imagined reality as a dangerous criminal on the run. A wild mix of paranoia and pulp shot through the psychedelia of the late ‘60s, the film addresses the severity of society’s mental health issues. At the end of the decade, both Trintignants were familiar with success in front of and behind the camera. Jean-Louis was an international star, having appeared onscreen alongside Anouk Aimee and Brigitte Bardot and under the direction of Rohmer, Lelouch and Risi among others. Director Nadine Trintignant stunned Cannes and vied for the Palme d’Or the year prior with Mon amour, mon amour (1967), the story of a young woman contemplating an abortion. Though the two would divorce a few years later, here director and leading man combined their talents to make a pulpy portrait of society nearing the end of a tumultuous, confusing decade.
by Thomas Davant
