A profoundly Hitchcockian film, in that its real subjects are guilt, passion and terrible consequences of a sin that starts out small.

The work of one of the most continuously surprising and accomplished directors of his day.

In the end, the film is not about an attraction between two people, but about the love of the spectator for the image -- the perverse transactions between the audience and the screen.

Depardieu brings to his part a lumpish, hulking charm; picture a viciously unhappy and musclebound five-year-old -- a sort of middle-class James Dean.