Fourbi is a 1996 French-Swiss drama film written and directed by Alain Tanner and starring Karin Viard. It follows a woman whose past is used for a television project. A writer and an actress then become involved in her life. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and later shown at festivals including Locarno, Montreal, and Hamburg.
Synopsis
Rosemonde, who eight years earlier killed a man who allegedly tried to rape her, has sold her story to a television production company planning a dramatization of the case. A young writer is hired to develop the screenplay, but when she resists his attempts to revisit the events, a young actress is sent to speak with her instead. Their contact gradually develops into a personal bond.
Fourbi revisits motifs and characters from Tanner’s 1971 film La Salamandre.
Reception
Pierre Lachat of Cinema 42 called Fourbi Alain Tanner’s best feature film since Dans la ville blanche. Filmbulletin described the film as the first of Tanner’s late works and wrote that it showed a new freshness and contemporary relevance. Variety found that while it had enough material for “a decent little movie,” Tanner “failed to develop any of the characters much beyond their starting positions”.
