Movies should visually grab an audience from the first frame. There are classic films that use complicated dolly moves to create this effect. Think about what Orson Welles did in Touch of Evil. Sometimes you don’t need to lay miles of track to get the same effect. A perfect example is Weak Spot. All director Peter Fleischmann (Hamburg Syndrome) and his camera crew did was tilt the camera up and then down to get the audience’s attention for the rest of the movie. Weak Spot is about what happens when a fascist government takes over and empowers the police state.
The movie opens with a shot of an apartment building. Black cars pull up in front. Agents enter the building. A man steps onto the top balcony and jumps to his death before the agents get to him. The agents are from the country’s Special Service. They grab the guy’s wife and let the ambulance crew take care of the body on the asphalt. Georgis (Barbarella‘s Ugo Tognazzi) is having a morning romp with his girlfriend and a box of pastries. They talk of their date that night and her moving in with him. A happy future awaits him. He drops by a neighborhood bar for a drink. A guy coming out of the bathroom steps on his foot and acts like a jerk as he leaves the bar. Before he can finish his shot, an agent from the Special Service grabs him and escorts him out of the bar for interrogation. The jerk is shot down the block by agents. Georgis gets drilled by The Director about the incident. Even though nothing really happened, he suspects that Georgis is a suspect. He orders The Investigator (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie‘s Michel Piccoli) and The Manager (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage‘s Mario Adorf) to drive Georgis to the Central unit on another island for further questioning and perhaps jail time. He keeps insisting his innocence, but the police state refuses to admit they could be wrong. Will he be sentenced for letting a man step on his shoe?
The opening of Weak Spot is a single shot with a tilt up to the balcony and a tilt down to see the jumper on the pavement (there is a barely noticeable edit that made the stunt work). It’s an amazing bit of cinematic magic in the pre-CGI era. Peter Fleischmann keeps up these simple and effective moments over the course of the film. Piccoli and Tognazzi play this Kafkaesque film just right as things get twisted around during their long journey. They are able to handle the comic absurdity and paranoid realities. We learn that the Director has put things into the trip to try to open up the suspect. This is all a massive game. The suspect has plenty of chances to flee, but refuses to since that will make him look guilty. He also knows that The Investigator is a great shot and is looking for an excuse to turn him over to the coroner instead of the agents at Central. When you think you understand the film, there’s a serious twist to give a sense this trip is a test on The Investigator. Is he a weak link at Special Service. Weak Spot is more than Kafka as the third act plays out. This is a brilliant and entertaining film.
Weak Spot is an international production with a German director making a French language movie in Greece with an Italian leading actor. But everything gels in the paranoid stew. Using Greece is important since at the time of release in 1975, the country had finally stopped being run by the military and the police. Weak Spot is also an important film right now for people living in America as every day we wake up to find out that people are being investigated because they pursued convicted criminals, published a news story or posted something online. Soon you’ll have FBI agents banging on doors of people who liked a random tweet or have a friend on their Facebook account that upset someone in the new government or a billionaire. It’s not farfetched to imagine government agents grabbing a person because someone stepped on their foot at a TGIFridays. Weak Spot is even more chilling half a century later.
The Video is 1.66:1 anamorphic. The new 4K Restoration brings out the details of examination rooms. The barber sweats through his shirt to an extreme. The Audio is LPCM 2.0 Mono in French. You’ll clearly hear the typewriter pecking away as well as Ennio Morricone’s score. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Travs Woods has him feeling that the film is reflecting what’s happening in current times. He gets into the weak spots that comes up at various time in the film. He points out how the characters attempt to have a day without fear in this police state.
TV Interview with Michel Piccoli (4:52) has him talking about Weak Spot on a French chat show. He gets into the novel about the special police. They started filming four days after the Generals lost power in Greece.
Lovely Jon (26:20) has him examine Ennio Morricone’s score for the movie. This was a time when the Oscar winner was working around the clock. He scored 19 movies that were released in 1975 including Autopsy and Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders. Lovely Jon gets into what’s going on in film scoring at this time. We learn of the various musicians who worked with Morricone at this time including his conductor.
Limited Edition Illustrated Booklet has an essay by Kat Ellinger.
Radiance Films present Weak Spot: Limited Edition. Directed by Peter Fleischmann. Screenplay by Peter Fleischmann and Jean-Claude Carrière Starring Michel Piccoli, Ugo Tognazzi, Mario Adorf, Adriana Asti, Dimos Starenios and Thymios Karakatsanis. Running Time: 111 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: January 28, 2025.
