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France · 1992
2h 19m
Director Arnaud Desplechin
Starring Emmanuel Salinger, Thibault de Montalembert, Marianne Denicourt, Emmanuelle Devos
Genre Thriller
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After spending some time with his diplomat father in Germany, a young French medical student returns by train to Paris to resume his studies. He is puzzled by the harsh treatment he receives from customs at the border but doesn't begin to understand why until he gets home and discovers a mummified head in his luggage. He suspects that someone at customs put it there, but is not sure. Instead of reporting the meandering body part, he decides to investigate it using the tools he has as a medical student. It appears to be the head of a Russian who died somewhere in Asia.
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More than two hours in length, The Sentinel packs too much into a weird tale that shifts ground between political thriller and psychological drama -- too much to be completely comprehensible except to Desplechin himself. It would require a severe editing job to rescue it, even for the friendly art-house crowd. [19 May 1992]
What’s remarkable—and Kafkaesque—about La Sentinelle is how Desplechin grounds the phantasmagoric aspects of his tale in the details, routines, and conflicts of daily life.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Although the drama doesn't quite live up to its early promise, much of it is emotionally involving and intellectually stimulating. [22 May 1992, p.12]
The Seattle Times by John Hartl
While La Sentinelle is often a lively shaggy-dog story, it ultimately isn't much more than that. [01 Jan 1999]
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
My Sex Life, for all its virtues, was a bit conventional and bland, but The Sentinel is genuinely crazy and a lot more interesting, mainly because it has a meatier subject: the end of the cold war and what this means to French yuppies.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A complex and truly original film. [19 Jul 1993, p.F7]
While La Sentinelle doesn't end with a conventionally satisfying payoff, Desplechin's thoughtful and meticulously detailed direction offers many other rewards.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Although the thriller aspect of "La Sentinelle" doesn't quite add up, the film is still an absorbing, psychologically resonant portrait of French student life. As directed by Desplechin, the attractive young cast hardly seems to be acting.
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