Reviewed by Doug Cooper
Featuring Serge Reggiani, Romy Schneider, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Berq, Berenice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin,
Catherine Allegret, Gilbert Amy, Jean-Louis Ducarme,
Jacques Douy, Costa Gavras, Lan Nguyen
Certification UK 15
Runtime 100 minutes
Directed by Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea
This documentary about the making of Clouzot's near movie is alternately bewitching yet boring, fascinating but formal. The venerated movie director (Manon, The Wages of Fear, Les Diabolique) never completed this 1964 drama. Three weeks' worth of filming were done but travails conspired against the project. Clouzot was seemingly too perfectionist, he didn't get on with lead actor Reggiani, he kept two camera crews waiting, pouring money down the drain, and ultimately suffered a heart attack. The production was well and truly scuppered.
Various participants on the film (including Costa Gavras who was the Assistant Director) give eye witness accounts of its making and, to be honest, there isn't anything that rivetting to be told about this film's collapse. But the footage that remains is a treat. Reggiani plays a man with an insatiable jealousy of his lovely wife Schneider. If he sees her with another man it sends him into paroxsyms of turmoil. These conflicting thoughts play on his mind, giving rise to some memorable imagery. The "real life" scenes are shot in black and white but when we enter his fevered imagination we get glossy early '60s pyschedelia type portraits - blurred shots, odd camera angles, erotic closeups.
To supplement the drama scenes from the script are acted out by Bejo and Gamblin in an attempt to embellish the plot and give the characters more depth. Pretentious? You betcha. Rewarding? That too. For movie aficionados this shouldn't be missed. But others should beware that there are longueurs that could send you napping. Overall though, it's very interesting to see what might have been - and is a welcome reminder of a bygone age when a director had carte blanche to put his very personal vision across.