Unrated, 1 hr. 32 min. Directed By:
Louis Malle. Release Date: Jun 24, 1958. DVD
Release Date: Apr 25, 2006.
There’s an old joke about what
happens when you play a country song backwards.
You get everything back. I have a
similar joke about French movies from the 50s and 60s. Pensive smoking, tragic love, at least one
person who spends half the movie talking to themselves, and a youth that bucks
tradition in a vain effort to not only be different from the generation before
them, but subtly mimics the American trends and styles of the day. It makes them like everyone else in more than
one way.
In a lot of ways, this movie reminded me of Breathless, and not just because both are French black and white movies of the same era.
In a lot of ways, this movie reminded me of Breathless, and not just because both are French black and white movies of the same era.
Story-wise, I thought this movie was
outstanding. You have this poor sap, Julien
Tavernier, who gets stuck in an elevator in his office, has two kids steal his
car, and gets accused of the murder of his boss. Oh, wait, he actually did do that. So the story’s outstanding, but I have a hard
time rooting for the “hero” here. Strangely,
the movie seems to focus little on Tavernier’s exploits, but follows around
several other characters through Paris.
I guess they were worried about how much interest you can drum up while
you’re stuck in an elevator shaft. They
were probably right to worry, but I would have liked more attention to what was
going on in the elevator. I also dug the kind of jazzy soundtrack, although I think the soundtrack on the DVD is a little overpowering.
I had a harder time with some of the
characters in the story. Namely, Louis,
who seemed to be one of those les
insufferables characters that French films seem to be so fond of. The more he spoke, the more I rolled my
eyes. I had a similar reaction to
Florence Carala, who spends the whole movie wandering around the streets of
Paris sounding for all the world like one of those Calvin Klein commercials
from the 80s.
While I didn’t always love the
French trappings, I did think this was a great crime story. I think it’s almost comical that he manages
to get away with the murder he commits (at least for a time), but manages to
get accused of committing a different murder.
Now that’s some serious irony, and I can respect that.
This is definitely one to check out,
even with the very French themes. Folks
who don’t like subtitles won’t care for this, so take a pass. Thank the maker that my French is still good
enough to follow most of this, because the subtitles might have broken me this
week. There's something very fitting about having watched this for Bastille Day.
