Concept T shirts Reviews

Melville became the archetypal director of French ‘policiers’, but this was his first. Jet black shadows, cigarettes and trench coats - he took the props of forties US film noir and added a complexity that was pure Gallic.

With the great Belmondo (Breathless) in the lead this film is full of ambiguity that is never entirely explained. Indeed the only part of the film that doesn’t work well is the long exposition that Belmondo has to give at the end to make some sort of sense of the foregoing action. Long flashbacks seem to change the meaning of what we have experienced - although we do not know who we can trust and Belmondo’s explanation could be a self-serving fabrication.

Melville has created a film that replicates elements of the great noirs that had come before, but Le Doulos is not a classic on a par with those Bogart was making years before. Still it is a film that repays careful watching.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Art, Life & T shirts, Reviews, Films . You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.