Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire (1989)

Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire is the second filmed version of George Simenon's Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire (1933), the first being Julien Duvivier's Panique (1946), although that film wasn't as faithful to the book as this is. To some, this movie – perhaps like most Leconte movies in general – might seem a little slow, a little encumbered by long shots, but that is how Leconte does it, lingering lovingly over the sensations of the characters, allowing the audience not only to favour the moments gently, but also to speculate on the psychology of the characters.

From the opening scenes we know that a girl in her early twenties has been murdered, although not the motive. We also know the Inspector (André Wilms) dealing with the case, and that he strongly suspects Monsieur Hire (not his real name, but a changed one) and wonders why Hire (Michel Blanc) is so detested. For detested he is: children bang on his door out of mischief, his neighbours stare at his behind his back, his gets flour bombs thrown at him, etc.

Monsieur Hire is also very odd: he not only dresses impeccably to go to his tailoring business, but he keeps rats in a cage and when one dies he wraps it up in scrap tailoring material and throws it in the river. To counteract his negative aspects, he has numerous tenpin bowling trophies, a sport at which he's recognised as a star, someone who can make a strike blindfolded.

But then again there's definitely something very creepy, very unsavoury about him because he spends hour after hour watching Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire), the girl in the opposite flat, watching her every movement, the way she irons, the way she undresses, the way she makes love to her boyfriend Émile (Éric Thuillier). She wants to marry Émile, and then notices Hire watching her, becomes obsessed by it.

But she appears not to dislike Hire's voyeurism, even seems to be enjoying it, she visits Hire, invites him out for a meal. She comes to learn of his voyeuristic habits, even learns that he is sick of paying for sex, that Hire loves her. Can she possibly be in love with Hire, this much older weird man, a man she discovers has seen Émile kill the young girl? Hire comes to believe it, and the signs she shows would suggest that too, the ecstatic (?) expressions (unseen by Hire) she makes when he touches her lovingly during public events. But surely this is just a mask, a make-believe, surely she is merely entrapping Hire?

As the net moves in closer on Hire he plans to go away with her, frees his rats, packs his bag at waits at the station. But she doesn't come and he returns home to find the Inspector with Alice: the murdered girl's bag has been found in his wardrobe – all the time Alice was playing a double game and her planting of the bag seals the frame-up and the bizarre Hire must be guilty. Hire escapes via the rooftops but falls to his death. Only afterwards does the Inspector discover that all along Hire had been innocent – he has left the proof in a locker.

Monsieur Hire is not only a thriller, not only a crime story, but a festival of the senses and proof of what an amazing film maker Patrice Leconte is.