Les Enfants Terribles first published, in a different version, by Movie Gazette, in Nov 2004 Paul (Edouard Dermithe) is somnolent, sickly and passive, while Elisabeth (a mesmerising Nicole Stéphane) is bold, manipulative and domineering. As siblings, they are like chalk and cheese, but form an intimately tight pair together, “like two limbs of the same…
Le Cercle Rouge first published by Movie Gazette The French auteur Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73) specialised in ‘policiers’, or crime films, tapping into a dark vein of pessimism which has always lain buried deep within classic American film noir, and refining it into an existentialist vision of the world and man’s place in it. Perhaps best…
Le Doulos first published by Movie Gazette ‘Doulos’ is French slang for a hat, and also for a police informer – and accordingly both hats and duplicity feature large in Jean-Paul Melville’s film Le Doulos, in a combination and quantity not seen again until the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing (1990). Maurice (Serge Reggiani), fresh out of prison,…