Sometimes accident and crime are hard to distinguish. "Secret Defense" is a two-part film that runs for about three hours. At the same time, there are not so many active actions, but for me this was not a minus: several times the heroine Sandrin (Silvie) went on the subway and we could see Paris in 1998 through the window, several times went on the train with running fields and fences outside the window, often we watched Sylvie at home and at work. Pleasant landscapes, interiors of Sylvie's apartment, Walser's estate. The movie ran smoothly and in no hurry. This style of narration and shooting caused a desire to see other films from the filmography of director Jacques Rivette.
I like Sandrine Bonner as an actress and as a lady. A calm woman with a charm that attracts my eyes. She drew attention to her from the film “Chess Player” with Calvin Klein and decided to get acquainted with earlier works in cinema. Here Sandrine plays a woman closed in her inner experiences, but straightforward and decisive. At first, the first 30-40 minutes it seems that Sandrine’s acting in general does not exist, but from the moment of the trip on the train with a gun it became clear that it was the heroine herself who was like that, but now she is worried that her nature is not typical, respectively, Sandrine revealed herself (especially in the scene of a conversation with her friend after returning from Valser).
Jerzy Radzivilovic (Walser) As it turned out, he was already a partner of Sandrine in the film Revelations to a Stranger. In this movie he played a confident, a little impressive man. I liked the image created, the calm and ironic look of bright eyes, the ability to solve problems even with a simple conversation, the radiant male energy.
The intrigue in the "Secret Defense" is also there, moreover, after such a significant amount of screen time, such a conclusion is literally in the last minute of the movie unexpectedly.
Totally. In my opinion, in some scenes, the actions of the characters were contrived, and the past and motivation of the characters were not disclosed properly, but for the slow, attentive to the visual attractiveness of the manner of narration, the play of Sandrin and Hedgehog, the development of the plot throughout the three hours.
7 out of 10