A Pure Formality

I really don't know why this movie is so unknown. It's entertaining, surprising, the actings are superb and the ending is... at least different... Depardieu plays the writer Onoff and the name can say something about the character(On/off). There are many ways to understand this film after the ending, You may choose the way you like...

Very strong, very impressive work. I never realized how good Polanski is even when he's just an actor for hire on a project. Not the kind of film you think it is

As much as I wish there were more strange films like this, the story didn't really accomplish anything and I left feeling underwhelmed.

Atmospheric mystery with a philosophical bent and more than a touch of Kafka. The art design is terrific, the setting has a timeless quality - it could be anytime in the 20th century. Depardieu is great, as is Polanski, and I wish they still made stuff like this today.

Very few people understood and appreciated this masterpiece. This is my favorite movie, and I saw literally thousands of them. More a play than a movie with superb acting and music that sets the tone. This is the only time (save, perhaps, for the Green Card) when Depardieu sings. Some metaphysical background would really help to fully understand and appreciate it.

Man sollte ihn vermutlich zweimal anschauen. Einmal spät in einer Regennacht für die Atmosphäre und noch einmal am hellichten Tag, um ihn zu verstehen.

Un film avec musique magnifique :)

On sojourn in France, Tornatore has left his sentimental humanism at home in Italy, and for a change of pace plunges into a Polanski-esque thriller, dark, cramped, cryptic, unreal (or irreal) (or surreal), with Polanski himself on hand for validation. The environmental details -- the unrelenting rain, the pots positioned beneath the leaky roof, the mud-encrusted shoes, the clock without hands, the rattrap in the liquor cabinet -- are well done.

A likable cast battles against a forced and rather hackneyed script.