A Pure Formality

A Pure Formality (Una pura formalità, 1994) — watch online on iFILM this taut Italian-French psychological thriller from Giuseppe Tornatore. Gérard Depardieu plays Onoff, a celebrated writer who has spent years in reclusive silence. One stormy night he is picked up on a remote road, brought to a rural police station, and found without documents or a clear account of what he was doing.

The Inspector — played by Roman Polanski — is convinced the man knows more than he lets on. A body has been discovered nearby. What follows is a prolonged interrogation in a single room: questions that circle back on themselves, answers that shift with each telling. The station's peeling walls, the rain hammering outside, the single bare lightbulb overhead — Tornatore uses every inch of the setting.

Two actors, one room, no action outside the conversation — and Tornatore never lets the air out of it. Depardieu and Polanski play the scene like a chess match where the board itself turns out to be different from what either player thought. The ending reframes everything. Stream A Pure Formality (1994) online on iFILM.