A ★★★★★ review of Le Doulos (1962) (original) (raw)
theironcupcake’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Who were you calling?" "The cemetery, to book you a place in case you need it."
Women Film Editors #103: Monique Bonnot
I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been noted by many better writers infinite times over, but sometimes I need a reminder: it's staggering to reflect on the range that Jean-Paul Belmondo possessed as an actor. He could easily embody absolute sweethearts so charming in their colorful buffoonery, more subtle and nuanced roles in serious-minded period pieces, blasé hoodlums... and yet in Melville's Le Doulos, JPB is a real ice-cold bastard, a slick operator with no qualms about killing anyone who stands in the way of a multi-million loot from a jewel robbery. French gangster flicks are often depressing, but there is a grim satisfaction in seeing how it all unfolds here (occasionally in entertainingly convoluted fashion), the whole affair as chilly and unsettling as the blanket of fog that seems to constantly roll over Paris, symbolically trapping our antiheroes as they meet their respective fates. (There's a definite overlap with William Friedkin's later To Live and Die in L.A., a tale mired in hopelessness as cycles of violence regenerate, especially by men against women.) Oh, and having Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Michel Piccoli and René Lefèvre in the cast too? Icing on the cake.
Behind the camera, cinematographer Nicolas Hayer - who also shot Clouzot's Le Corbeau (1943), Duvivier's Panique (1946). Cocteau's Orpheus (1950) and Melville's earlier film Two Men in Manhattan (1959) - gives Le Doulos quite possibly the most breathtaking B&W glow I've ever seen in a crime drama. Moreover, the editing by Monique Bonnot keeps the story humming along; she worked with Melville on many occasions, including 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946), Les Enfants Terribles (1950), Bob le Flambeur (1956), the aforementioned Two Men in Manhattan, Magnet of Doom (1963), Le Deuxième Souffle (1966) and Le Samouraï (1967). Her daughter Françoise Bonnot would go on to have an even more acclaimed career in the same field, winning an Oscar for the Costa-Gavras film Z (1969) and collaborating with him again on several of his subsequent features (The Confession, State of Siege, Special Section, Missing, Hanna K., Mad City), along with other notable directors over the next few decades such as Melville (Army of Shadows), Dario Argento (Four Flies on Grey Velvet), Roman Polanski (The Tenant), Volker Schlöndorff (Swann in Love), the team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (Top Secret!), Michael Cimino (Year of the Dragon, The Sicilian), Ridley Scott (1492: Conquest of Paradise) and Julie Taymor (Titus, Frida, Across the Universe, The Tempest). Quite a family, those Bonnots!
In short, if I got away from my point: this might just be my new favorite by Melville.