The director who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s and spent the last couple of decades of the 20th century directing big Hollywood projects, Barbet Schroeder created a crime drama called Tricheurs in 1984. The film, internationally promoted as Cheaters, tells us the tale of a gambling addict who has always wanted to accrue wealth, thinking having a fortune will make him happy. He becomes a cheater, but scoring big in casinos still doesn’t make him happy, as he feels elated only when he squanders whatever he managed to win.
This small French film is carried on the performances of Jacques Dutronc and Bulle Ogier, and received some glowing reviews from Western outlets when it came out. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby called it “a long-overdue treat” and “another entertaining, weirdly elegant tale about people moving too fast, living too intensely, along the thin line that separates elation from despair,” while the Los Angeles Times presented it as “an existential love story that also laments the loss of honor and meaning in contemporary life.” This intelligent exploration of a man’s empty yearning for something unattainable is further enhanced by the music of Peer Raben, the German composer who worked closely with Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
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