Alternate Best Actor 1981: Michel Serrault & Lino Ventura in Garde à Vue

Michel Serrault nor did Lino Ventura receive an Oscar nominations for portraying Jérôme Martinaud and Inspector Antoine Gallien respectively in Garde à Vue.

Garde à Vue is an effective psychological thriller about one night of interrogating the prime suspect in a child murderer investigation. 

Michel Serrault plays the suspect and Lino Ventura plays the investigator in this game of cat and mouse, although part of the mystery you might say is what type of film this actually is and the development of it. Is it a character study of this kind of man and just trying to achieve the confession, or is this a genuine attempt to discover the truth of the matter? Each performer crafts a possible narrative through their performances and much of the compelling drama is through their interactions with one another. Ventura is obviously the more straightforward performance as the investigator who takes in this wealthy attorney on New Year's to ask him a few questions after the man had discovered one of the victims. Serrault on the other hand must be the enigma as the possible suspect, and the question isn't just whether or not he's guilty, but also if the film is about him confessing or about him being guilty or not. The game then is afoot for both actors to ply their trade with engaging conversation as the investigator goes through his evidence and leaves Serrault to attempt to tell his story. 

Ventura and Serrault are an effective duo in this game by projecting very different manners of the person. The old pro Ventura presents a man of convictions with his slightly haggard but penetrating stare. Ventura suggests a man who has been through similar matters before, and while it is another day in his life, it is the day in the life of a true professional. Conversely, Serrault is anything but at ease. There is such a prominent tension in his physicality in the role, as a man who is clearly filled with some kind of anxiety, although the exact anxiety is the key. When Ventura as the inspector asks his first questions in a calm yet assertive manner, the suspect initially disparages the inspector back by questioning his virtues as an inspector. Serrault's delivery contrasts strongly with sharp intensity. Serrault makes the words filled with a fit of almost unspecific anger, he is angry at the questions but it goes beyond that in the sense of frustration in him. Serrault's whole face is filled with a whole lot as he stares at the cop, and while this doesn't necessarily immediately denote guilt, it does suggest a man who is hiding something. 

The first obstacle in the attorney's story is the whereabouts of a dog he claimed to be walking and his whereabouts during the time the children went missing. Ventura prodding through this rather strict and cold efficiency in his words. Ventura plays the detective well by showing a man who knows the evidence, even if circumstantial, is more than enough to stumble the man he is interrogating. He doesn't accentuate the idea he just supports it. Serrault though is quite effectively frustrating as the man in that you can fully get the read on his frustrations fully other than he has them. Serrault is properly obtuse though as he speaks with such bile in stating his position in the community as seen as someone who must be taken down or lashes out at the detectives who will not accept any of his claims as the truth. Ventura and Serrault work well together by really just playing the two sides of the musical piece with Ventura being the steady bass against Serrault's far more manic tenor. In each duet, though you see some bits of sanity seemingly stripping from Serrault's performance as he reveals a man who is seemingly more and less than he is claiming he is. 

Serrault's work is purposefully unlikable I'd say right down to his typical grimace and perhaps most obvious when one of the other cops presses him about the crime. The reaction of the man though is not one of ardent denial but rather this bitter insistence on correctly describing the order of the crime which Serrault plays as this fixation of a pedantic nature. Serrault plays it well by being horrible, however horrible in a somewhat ambiguous way. Serrault makes it clear that the man's mind is probably not fixated correctly however he suggests potentially the man is stuck within his frustrations of the false accusations or the possibility of being caught. It doesn't help that the deeper we dive the more vicious the man is. Serrault though is key in that when the man seems to try to come up with an excuse, for example by noting his wife's sexual refusals of him and his visiting of a whore, he shows some very deep seeded anguish in the man. Anguish perhaps as a man trying to avoid his punishment, or a man just living a very difficult emotionally fraught life. Again this is particularly effective against Ventura's calmly penetrating stare as he pesters the man, before going to his wife (Romy Schneider) for more information on the man. 

Where we, spoilers, get to seemingly the truth as the wife implicates the husband leaving the inspector to introduce this to the man. Serrault is excellent in the scene in just expressing such a quiet state of defeat as he admits to all the crimes with this sort of passive indifference of a man who sees that he is seemingly meaningless to his wife. Although the scene is excellent because it actually makes one immediately suspect for the first time that the attorney isn't guilty because his admittance is without that anger or bitterness, it is just sadness for life itself. This is quickly discovered to be the truth as by chance the real killer is discovered instead. This reworks the thoughts behind Serrault's performance throughout, which reveals that his anger was just like a man in an unhappy life, with the secrets of that unhappy life being pulled out in an unpleasant way. Serrault's work naturally reveals itself as working both as the possible killer and also just an innocent man going through hell. With he and Ventura just doing striking work in articulate this unique dance that does get to the truth of the man, but just not the truth that was expected. The very final moment then is exceptional work by both actors as you could say it is the most real moment, as neither man is playing a game, that is the now are just human. The moment is after the death of the attorney's wife, where Serrault is heartbreaking by the man's emotion being wholly uncompromised in just his disbelieving yells of heartbreak, and Ventura is also quite moving by showing now his reaction to no longer being the calculating detective, instead being just the empathetic human feeling for the man wronged by circumstance.