Based on a 1947 philosophical novel by Jean Giono, who also wrote the script, François Leterrier’s Un roi sans divertissement (US: A King Without Distraction) feels like a European western-noir crossover flavored by an Andrei Tarkovsky art film and molded around a whodunit tale set in a remote mountain village. A meditation on the banality of evil, the film brilliantly uses its freezing cold setting to create an atmosphere of total isolation, alienation, even strangeness, where human beings are specks against snowy nothingness and a man can cause suffering just for the metaphysical thrill of it. In his first leading role, Claude Giraud plays Capitaine Langlois, a police officer in 19th century France who is called by a retired prosecutor (Charles Vanel) to a remote village where an unknown killer is wreaking havoc on residents. As the investigation proceeds and comes closer to unearthing the murderer’s identity, Langlois finds his own mind giving way to a sort of bloodlust, the isolation making him behave erratically, his instincts drawing him toward the suffering of a wolf, a bird, a goose, all culminating in a tragic confrontation with the killer. Colette Renard plays Clara, the former prostitute who boards Langlois during his visit and reminds him of human beings’ capacity for both good and evil. Visually, countless shots are master strokes of composition and color that build on each other, impression by impression, bright crimson blood smeared across the snow, a circle of raised torches illuminating yet another dead body. While the score by the extremely prolific Maurice Jarre serves its purpose, the musical mood is dominated by the languid, somber ballad, “Pourquoi faut-il que les Hommes s’Ennuient?” (loosely, “Why Must Men Be Bored?”), written and performed several times by Belgian singer Jacques Brel.