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Quai des Orfevres - Criterion CollectionRating:
Release Date: 27 May, 2003 Retail Price: $29.95 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.96! Cast: |
Quai des Orfevres - Criterion Collection Reviews
A perfect film?
This work presents arguably the greatest ambiguity ever filmed.
The plot revolves around a murder but everything else is ambiguous to the viewer and even to the characters in the movie until the very end. Who killed the victim? Who will be charged with the crime? Who believes that they themself killed the victim? Who is believed by who to have killed the victim? And what does the viewer believe about all this? The answers to these questions change scene by scene, with the one constant being that these questions never have the same answer until the end of the movie.
The movie's style is equally ambiguous... Is it a noir where the sins of the lead characters appear certain to bring about their fall? Or is it a classic detective story where the relentless investigator traps the perpretator in their own lies? Is it a story of love? And if so, between who? Or one of jealousy? Ultimately it ends up as a love story because it is the many overlapping bonds of love that propel the plot, define the characters, and bring this movie to its spectacular conclusion.
So if you love noir, you MUST see this film. It is the only movie you will ever see where a single scene late in the movie changes the entire previous movie from a noir to a love story.
"I'm a funny kind of girl."
In post WWII France, vaudeville singer Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) and her husband/accompanist Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier) make an unlikely pair. She's an effervescent extrovert, and while he's a good husband, he's a dullard, and just doesn't seem to be her type. Jenny--a rather kinetic creature with a beautiful voice--has a stage act that is suggestive and flirtatious, but she always assures her husband that he's the only man for her. Jenny's career is on an upward swing when she goes to the photography studio of Dora (Simone Renant) a close friend of Maurice. Here Jenny comes to the attention of a hideous old lecher named Brignon (Charles Dullin). Dora warns Jenny to stay away from Brignon, but Jenny doesn't take her advice. She thinks Brignon can further her career. Brignon's continued interest in Jenny causes Maurice to threaten Brignon publicly.
When Brignon shows up dead, police Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) investigates the murder, and Maurice is soon the main suspect.
The film's title, "Quai des Orfevres" refers to the address of the police station where Inspector Antoine conducts most of his interviews in this French Noir crime film. Inspector Antoine seems to be another dull, sour, unprepossessing character, but as an expert in human nature, he unravels all of the suspects' secrets. Consequently, the murder of Brignon takes a back seat to the characters involved in the investigation. There's a generosity towards the foibles of human nature that seeps through every scene. Some of the language and the characters seem startling modern, and in the end "the case boils down to the usual: diddly squat." From director/writer Henri-George Clouzet, Quai des Orfevres is a black and white film in French with English subtitles--displacedhuman
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