The Boiling Mirror

I know some people express their affection through constant arguments and manipulation. I've always had trouble understanding why this is so but I found 1950's Les Enfants Terribles captivating. The tale of two beautiful siblings who live together, their eternal war on each other and their shared fantasies, it's also a singular combination of vision from two of France's greatest filmmakers, Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau.

Cocteau wrote the source novel and the screenplay and provides voice-over narration for the film. He also directed one scene when Melville was ill--Melville is the film's credited director. That some have suggested the movie was really directed by Cocteau and Melville was entirely employed on more technical aspects of production (Melville was also the producer) isn't surprising. It was only Melville's second feature, after Le Silence de la Mer, and Les Enfants Terrible, with its raucous dialogue and reverence for beauty, seems much more like Cocteau than the director who established himself as a great maker of noir.

But there is at least one important carryover from Le Silence de la Mer; one of that film's stars, Nicole Stephane, plays Elisabeth, one of the siblings, and supposedly this is one of the primary things that convinced Cocteau that Melville was the man to adapt his novel. But it was apparently in spite of Melville's disapproval that Cocteau insisted on casting Edouard Dermit as Paul, the other sibling, who was too old for the part of the high schooler whose delicate frame confines him to bed for days after being hit with a snowball.

Yet Dermit has a wonderfully Cocteau-ish look and, more importantly, bears a remarkable resemblance to Stephane. It's easy to see the two as reflections of each other, ever bound by attraction and repulsed by over-familiarity. They have a game where they compose a fantasy together and have a drawer where they've agreed to keep odds and ends as "treasures". They shoplift together compulsively--their rule is that they must never steal something that might be useful. Cocteau informs us in voiceover that it's Elisabeth's policy never to thank anyone for anything--she, "always expects miracles." It's as though the two maintain their dreamworld territory by denying any normal physical or emotional reactions to the rest of the world.

Maybe this gives their fights the freedom to be so absolutely brutal. In one scene, Paul tosses a glass of milk on Elisabeth while she's in bed. In another, the two fight so unrelentingly for the bath that both angrily pull their cloths off in their stampede for the water. Of course, it seems there must be an erotic element to their relationship, which seems confirmed when Elisabeth becomes jealous that Paul's fallen for another girl. This other girl, Agathe, is played by Renee Cosima who also played the boy who threw the snowball at Paul. Everyone remarks on the resemblance. Once again, Paul is attracted to the face of one who's brought him pain but by a trick of fate that same face belongs to a gentle, loving young woman. Of course, Elisabeth won't have it and that's where the manipulations start.

Whoever's most responsible for this cruel, fascinating film, it's certainly always a pleasure to look at. Les Enfants Terrible is available on The Criterion Channel.

Heists in the Void

Your average thief may worry that a partner or associate could be a police informant. But 1963's Le Doulos shows there may be much, much more crucial information a thief might not know about his associates' motives. This dark, contemplative, exciting Jean-Pierre Melville movie creates a canny impression of human experience in the context of criminal enterprise.

First we meet Maurice (Serge Reggiani), who has a long conversation with a fence (Rene Lefevre) before shooting and killing him without explanation. A shot of a dark hillside follows, pitch black except for the washed out white of a street lamp by which Maurice buries jewels he stole from the fence.

We meet Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a man Maurice had spoken fondly of to the fence, but who starts hitting Maurice's girlfriend, Therese (Monique Hennessy), not long after he's alone with her. We're given some explanation--he wants to know where Maurice's next job is so he can inform the police. Silien is an informant but, like with many other characters in the film, this doesn't quite explain all his actions.

The pervasive shadows obviously influenced by American noir complement the often ambiguous and violent actions of the characters as they trudge through the story. The climax of the film presents an explanation the viewer can't help but marvel at. You realise what a remarkable man Silien is and, at the same time, oddly credible, in no small part due to Belmondo's charismatic and natural performance. The film leaves the viewer with troubling questions about the human capacity to interpret the actions of others and the consequential danger of action in response--or inaction.

Romance is introduced two thirds of the way through as Silien brashly sits at a table with a bigshot's girl, Fabienne (Fabienne Dali). Of course, she and Silien have a past and are still drawn to each other. The chemistry between the two as they sit across the table from each other, and then as they're in bed together, might look like Bogart and Bacall in stills but the mystery around Silien and the strangely cool and furtive attitude of Fabienne gives the pair an enigmatic and sweetly fragile quality. Their relationship makes the end of the film hit twice as hard as it otherwise might have.

Le Doulos is available on The Criterion Channel.

God in the Senseless

What could a Catholic priest have to say to a Communist woman in a Nazi occupied French town? What kind of answers can he give her in light of that kind of trouble? 1961's Leon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre) avoids nearly all the answers you might except and yet feels remarkably natural. With a gorgeously textured cinematography and perfect performances, it's a lovely film about someone's conception of reality being completely altered, or rather, someone whose intellectual conception of reality is brought into harmony with her instinctive conception of it.

Barny (Emmanuelle Riva) is a young widow with a little girl. She's worried about her child because of the occupation. In an early scene, she meets with Jewish mothers and other Communists to discuss ideas on how to deal with the town being occupied. Many decide to get their children baptised. At this point, a simple solution like this seems workable because the Italians who initially occupy the town wear silly feathered hats and are more congenial than the Germans who show up later. At that point, some of the men take to living in the woods as an arm of the Resistance and Barny decides to send her little girl to live with two old women in the countryside.

Barny's sexually frustrated and starts to fall in love with a Jewish woman in the office named Sabine (Nicole Mirel). Leon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) tells Barny it's just because she hasn't been around men in a while and, it's true, there are few male characters in the film. Aside from Leon, there's only one other named male character, Edelman (Marco Behar), her Jewish boss who flees the town at some point.

She meets Leon in the confessional, to throw "Religion is the opiate of the masses" in his face. But her instincts had led her to him because she was already starting to feel the inadequacy of this maxim. Certainly faith is a lot more traumatic in this film than sedatives tend to be.

In Roger Ebert's review of the film he says that the director, Jean-Pierre Melville, "cleverly plays with our expectations." The expectations Ebert refers to are expectations of cinema, stories, or popular ideas. We expect some kind of confrontation with Sabine, with Barny either scandalously falling for her or find the attraction part of a terrible downfall but neither occurs. When Barny has a brief physical fight with a woman in the office who turns out to be a collaborator, ending with Barny slapping her, the woman unexpectedly kisses her.

And Leon doesn't seem to proselytise very stridently. He even admires the self-denial Communism as fostered in Barny's lifestyle. He doesn't blink when she frankly tells him how she uses a stick to masturbate.

It's hard to imagine any two other actors in these roles; Emmanuelle Riva is so clear eyed and honest in her spiritual quest while Jean-Paul Belmondo musters his cool, angry grace perfectly in this context. He's respectful of Barny but also kind of brutish in his abrupt manner, he even, without apology, pushes her when she blocks a doorway. When they talk about the existence of God, he stresses that logically proving God's existence misses the point. And the film subtly bears this out by continually presenting contradictions that wouldn't fit in a philosophy as unyielding as Communism. Contradictions presented subtly by the film but there for the viewer, and certainly Barny, to see; there's the fact that Leon, a Catholic priest, is helping the resistance and hiding Jews. There's the American soldier who tries to extort sex from her, humiliating her in the street, and the Nazi officer who's kind to her daughter. There's Barny's budding friendship with the collaborator and how the two argue frankly their points of view with each other while still remaining friends. All of this could be interpreted as absurd, chaotic human behaviour, but then again, it fits with what Leon tells her about how God even loves heretics.

Beautifully shot with fascinating editing choices that include abrupt fades seemingly almost in the middle of scenes, Leon Morin, Priest showcases Melville's unique command of cinematic language. He makes this a strikingly effective story.

Twitter Sonnet #1155

Expectant turtles wait upon the cloud.
Below, the sort of citrus towns evolve.
A set of glowing toys were disallowed.
The pages reckon now what books involve.
In choosing rooms the crown decides a head.
Ignoble lights illume the flashing sign.
A thousand feet protrude from 'neath the bed.
The growing maze consumes the mental twine.
A cool and wary eye regards from fur.
Above the fan a danger waits for air.
Through smaller fans computers always purr.
An offered fruit was very much a dare.
A second coat of paint repaired the house.
A cheese foundation pleased the local mouse.

The Place of the Gambler

One of the coolest movies I've ever seen is 1956's Bob le flambeur ("Bob the Gambler"), a gangster film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The story of an "old young man", it's a slice from the life of a man who casually gets by on things most people would consider reckless but he also conveys the depth and experience of a fellow who's been around a while and knows just what he's doing. He's distinguished from a younger supporting cast who are all cool in their own ways, inhabiting a shadowy, beautiful Montmartre.

Whether this movie could properly be called a film noir is debatable--I'd say yes, not just for the lighting and the crime but for the interplay between concepts of choice and fate. Bob (Roger Duchesne) lives by gambling, one of the purest combinations of choice and fate--you choose to play a game that leaves your fortune to fate. He used to pull heists but he's been clean for twenty years, he's even friends with a cop.

Then he loses big at the races one day and gets wind of eight hundred million francs being held in the vault of a casino. He weighs the decision carefully before deciding to go forward, at which point he begins to assemble a team and Bob le flambeur becomes the prototypical heist film. But a lot has happened in the movie before this.

Time is spent creating this world of criminal Montmartre. We meet a pimp who tries to borrow money from Bob but Bob's scruples won't allow him to help someone who abuses women. This both establishes part of the world and contributes to Bob's character. We meet a young man named Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) who, someone observes "does everything like Bob," at which someone else notes all young people want to be like someone they look up to. But Paolo surpasses Bob in one regard; with the beautiful, fascinating Anne (Isabelle Corey).

Bob takes her under his wing when he sees this young woman walking the streets apparently without a care in the world. Her lack of shame or fear is almost supernatural. When someone suggests beautiful young women like her usually have sugar daddies, she replies, "I just got one," meaning Bob. But it turns out she prefers to have sex with younger men and she doesn't get attached to any one of them.

There's not really any plot justification for the level of detail in her development except that it helps establish the world and Bob's self-control. Between the elegant costumes that never seem to quite cover her chest, Corey's performance, and the way she's shot by Melville and his cinematographer, never quite lingering as long as you'd like, she offers such temptation you admire Bob for having the strength not to fall down on his knees and beg for her affection. Paolo doesn't have that strength.

I love how this scene is put together, reversing between two point of view shots; from her looking straight at the high angle camera, naked in bed, lazy and playful, to Paolo standing over the low angle camera, insistently stepping forward with the light behind him, the visual appropriately coming on too strong as he rashly gives her sensitive information to prove himself that she didn't even ask for.

And then the film has one of the great gambling scenes at the end, largely to do with the surprise in its context, the sense of a hand of fate maybe or just pure luck. Is it cruelty or grace? It's hard to say but the question ensures you can't take your eyes away for a moment.