Coup de torchon 10/10/26

French director Bertrand Tavernier relocates Texan Jim Thompson’s acid-pulp thriller “Pop. 1280” to French colonial Africa just before WW2. Philippe Noiret embodies one of the coldest killers ever to stain a movie screen, a lawman who is also a functioning madman — and has a rational argument for every one of his murders. Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Stéphane Audran and Eddy Mitchell are the equally cynical colonials, in a situation dripping with racist degeneracy. It’s tense entertainment, without the guardrails of mainstream American prudery. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
10/10/26