Clean Slate (1981) poster
1981 · crime · noir · colonial

Clean Slate

Directed by Bertrand Tavernier2h 8m1981
ElsewhereIMDb7.37kRT88%TMDB7.0218
  • sombre
  • brisk
  • intense
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Sombre, kinetic, measured crime / noir, inventive in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

Our read · Clean Slate (1981) reads as a sombre, kinetic, inventive crime · noir · colonial entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
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The shape of Clean Slate

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want biting colonial dark comedy about a pitiful man seeking a clean slate.

ends unsettlingit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 18attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencecringe humiliation

Skip it tonightSkip if racist-period cruelty and bleak moral rot exhaust you.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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