THE LOST SON
UK, 1998, 103 minutes, Colour.
Daniel Auteuil, Nastassja Kinsky, Katlin Cartlidge, Ciaran Hinds, Marianne Denicourt, Bruce Greenwood, Billie Whitelaw, Cyril Schapps.
Directed by Chris Menges.
The Lost Son is a very grim pursuit thriller. It is one of the two English language vehicles for French star, Daniel Auteuil (the other being The Escort, 2000). He portrays a French private detective who is working in London. He is hired to find a missing photographer. He discovers a paedophile ring and pursues the criminals, even to Mexico. The film is quite relentless in its portrait of the private detective, his ambiguous relationships with the family who hire him, and has to deal with a prostitute who gives him leads to uncover the paedophile ring.
As the years have gone on, the theme is more relevant as paedophile rings are more exposed to the public and to investigation by police.
The film has a very strong cast, quite international ranging from Nastassja Kinski and Ciaran Hines to the Canadian Bruce Greenwood as one of the villains. Veteran Billie Whitelaw is the matriarch who hires the detective.
The film was directed by Chris Menges, a noted cinematographer, whose feature films include the award-winning A World Apart about the Slovo family in South Africa and the rather more quiet film, Second Best, with William Hurt.
1.The interest of the film? Impact? Exposure to an ugly world?
2.The London settings, the affluent, the suburbs? The world of the high-class prostitutes? The Mexican sequences? The contrast with Britain? The musical score?
3.The title, the reference to Leon and the search for him? The discovery of the boys used by the paedophile ring? Lost sons? The background of Lombard and his dead child?
4.Lombard and his character, tough, embittered? His police background? Working as the private detective, his spying on the unfaithful wives, blackmail? His back story, the gangsters, the death of his wife and child? His world-weariness?
5.Meeting with Carlos, the background from the police days, the Narcotics Bureau? Carlos’s situation, the Spitz family, their wealth, influence? His marriage to Deborah? The relationship between them?
6.The hiring of Lombard to find Leon? The characters of the mother and father? Deborah and her suspicions? Leon as a photographer? Lombard and his detective work, his discovering Emily? Her hiding? The boy?
7.The paedophile ring, Shiva, his age, fears, with Emily? The video? Leon and his discovery of the video, the abuse? The film’s treatment of the abuse issue and what it showed and what it didn't show? Emily and the information about The Austrian?
8.Lombard and his determination to investigate the ring? Natalie, friendship, her work, background, prostitution? Her pimp, Lombard and the connections, wanting to infiltrate the ring?
9.Lombard and his posing as a paedophile, the gangsters, the huge payment, ten thousand pounds? Natalie’s money? The gangsters, going to the hotel? His being left with the boy? The callous attitude and words of the men? The reaction of Lombard, his anger, his violence, killing one of the gangsters, wounding and torturing? His extracting the information about The Austrian and the Mexican background? His leaving the boys with Emily? The pathos of Natalie’s murder?
10.The reaction of the family, their firing him?
11.Mexico, Lombard and his search for The Austrian, finding him, drugged, captive? Freedman and his reaction, the murder of Leon?
12.Lombard, the escape, the confrontation with Freedman, his death?
13.His reporting to the Spitz family, the information about Emily – and using it as a trap, the irony that Carlos is the leader of the ring, paedophile? The boys, the confrontation with Carlos, shooting him?
14.The film as a relentless immersing of the audience in the world of the detective, the ugly world of gangsters, prostitution and paedophile rings? The value of an audience watching and understanding this kind of world?
