If you have seen L.627 or Les Rivières pourpres you will be familiar with the style here: very intricate character development, quite a slow-moving storyline and lots of fascinating attention to detail in the location shooting (not to mention excellent photography). At times, this can be a bit tedious to watch. Kahn’s decision to only include scenes based on real, documented incidents gives the film a somewhat disjointed feel. This is especially so in the first 2 to 3 reels in which the relationship between Succo and his teenage girlfriend are arbitrarily intercut with scenes of police officers investigating gruesome crimes across south-east France. As his offences become bolder and more serious, however, Kahn cranks up the pace quite effectively, highlighting the police’s inability to fit the pieces of the jigsaw against the background of Succo’s mayhem. Thinking back to the film, I’d say it’s cumulative effect justified the 124 minute running time, though I didn’t think so immediately after leaving the cinema.

As far as the acting goes, Stefano Cassetti turns in a satisfying performance of Succo, though he does go over the top at times (an occupational hazard when playing a madman, I admit). You could tell he was looking forward to the final scene – a demented rant on the roof of the jail after he was finally caught. The star of the show for me was Islid de Besco as the 16 year-old Léa, who met Succo by accident on holiday in a Provencal costal town and carried on a surreptitious affair with him throughout the following year whilst (unbeknown to her) he was becoming an ever more volatile and dangerous criminal. This is a very implausible scenario to say the least, made plausible only by a subtitle at the start which tells you that it actually happened, and De Besco’s totally convincing performance as a naïve teenager who starts off thinking that what Succo tells her is macho exaggeration, then slowly comes to realise that he is dangerously mad.

Production values were excellent. Lovely blue/grey Fujicolor landscapes (in ‘scope), some very inventive sound mixing and a set-piece car chase which could have been out of Taxi. My only gripe here is the significant amount of negative dirt and scratching on the print I saw, including a negative tramline which ran for almost 10 minutes.

I wouldn't call this a masterpiece, but it's certainly thought-provoking and worth a look.