In a small village in 1835 Normandy, Pierre Rivière butchers his mother, sister and brother before fleeing into the surrounding countryside. He is finally apprehended and while in captivity writes a memoir to explain his actions...

I, Pierre Rivière, full title Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon frère... (1975, 2 hrs 4 min 53 sec) was directed by Rene Allio from a book by the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The film won the Interfilm Award at the 1977 Berlin International Film Festival. The movie is a neo-realism historical re-enactment of an actual event which uses predominantly ancestors of the actual people involved. Allio’s choice to use the local farmers rather than trained actors was a brave one and for the most part worked well as it heightened the film's sense of being there.

What makes the film stand out from other murder mysteries is that Pierre wrote extensively, whilst he was imprisoned, about his motives. The film uses many voices to tell the story including Pierre’s account.

The film opens with an iconic image of rural life, a lone tree with the sprawling countryside as its backdrop, before plunging the viewer straight into the carnage which is the aftermath of Pierre’s rampage. From the investigating magistrate we get a gruesome descriptions of how the bodies were actually found. The mothers head was partially severed from her body, the actual shot of the bodies is less grim, presumably due to technical or financial limitations at the time. Still you don’t actually have to see the aftermath as the dispassionate official account is chilling enough.

Given that the film is populated with non-actors the cast do phenomenally well, especially Claude Herbert as the murderer. Overall, it’s quite amazing how well the villagers do in playing their roles.

The film is presented in the original French with optional English subtitles. For extras you get a ‘Making of’ feature (24 min 48 sec) which explains much about the choices that were made in creating the film. To be honest the anamorphic grainy print is not that spectacular, with lots of dirt, which is a shame as much of the camera work is quite beautiful. Although the PR blurb states the audio come in stereo, 5.1 and DTS these options did not appear on the check disc.

8

Charles Packer