Vidocq (2001 film)

Plot

In 19th century Paris, the famed detective Vidocq (Gérard Depardieu) disappears while pursuing a murderer called the Alchemist.

Étienne Boisset (Guillaume Canet), a young biographer of Vidocq's, follows in his footsteps and progressively uncovers Vidocq's investigations. He learns how Vidocq was first called in to investigate a series of assassinations by lightning, which led him to pursue the Alchemist. Étienne discovers that the Alchemist is a wizard of sorts who wears a mirrored mask and kills virgins to maintain eternal youth. Even the sex of the Alchemist is a mystery, because it sometimes utters mocking feminine sighs during combat with Vidocq. Étienne probes deeper into Vidocq's investigations and eventually comes to learn that the Alchemist uses virgin blood to make magical mirrors that consume human souls.

At last, Étienne comes to the end of his trail and discovers Vidocq alive and in hiding. Étienne dons a mirrored mask and reveals himself to be the Alchemist. Vidocq has known all along, however, and is ready to fight his nemesis. During their final confrontation, Vidocq defeats the Alchemist, but the end of the film suggests that the Alchemist survives.

Cast

Technology

The film featured 800 shots modified in post-production over a period of eight months, for a cost of over €20 million. As the final PAL DVD release shows, the film was shot 25i (interlaced), and only special effects shots were deinterlaced by means of smart field blending (imitating a progressive-type amount of motion blur due to a different shutter speed of progressive modes) during post-production, as the special effects crew obviously was in demand of progressive frames which are easier to process for special effects, before for the final release all normal shots were deinterlaced by means of simple line interpolation instead. The result are video-like appearance of motions in normal shots, and distinctive film-like motions for all effect shots due to the different amount of motion blur resulting from the different deinterlacing methods.