Yan: "You can't have everything. Good thing, too..."
Here's a very nice, moody crime flick from 1970's France, a slice-of-underworld-life if you will. Alain Delon puts in a great titular performance as "Le Gitan" ("The Gypsy"), a melancholy thief with a deep love of his dispossessed people. Delon is reunited with Renato Salvatori, with whom he starred in Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" plus several other films, although a bigger part (that of the well-off jewel-thief Yan) is played here very well by another top actor, Paul Meurisse.
"Le Gitan" contains plenty of action and suspense, but what's memorable here is the gritty tableau, a dark vision of the lives of two extraordinary men, the little touches that reveal character, the philosophical asides, and not least the lovely soundtrack which features Django Reinhardt's peerless guitar.
"Le Gitan" is available to English speakers as part of the Region 1 "Alain Delon - Five Film Collection", and the Region 4 "Best French Crime Flicks" box from Australia's Madman Studios. The latter features only dubbed English audio for this film, but I can recommend the result (also the video transfer to DVD).
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