Nous sommes tous des assassins

Hiipivät askeleet / Smygande steg / We Are All Murderers. FR / IT 1952. PC: UGC / Labor Film / Jolly Film. D: André Cayatte. SC: Cayatte, Charles Spaak. DP: Jean Bourgoin. M: Raymond Legrand. Starring Marcel Mouloudji (René Le Guen), Georges Poujouly (Michel Le Guen), Raymond Pellegrin (Gino Bollini), Yvonne Sanson (Yvonne Le Guen). 117 min. A vintage print from Valio-Filmi with Finnish / Swedish subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 15 May 2008. - "Un film à thèse". Subject: capital punishment. - A worn print with several joins but also with a beautiful definition of light. - Seeing this film for the first time I expected a mechanical study in social criticism. Surprise! - The lively portrayal of the Occupation. - The milieu of crime and brutalization. - We come to understand the mind of the killer. - A classic portrayal of Death Row. - The convicts are not sentimentalized or softened. We take steps to understand criminals in a way that would have fascinated Dostoyevsky.

L’Armée des ombres

079446 / 16 / FR / 1969 / Melville, Jean-Pierre / war
Armée des ombres, L’ / Tuntemattomat sankarit / Maanalainen armeija (video). PC: Films Corona (Nanterre), Fono Roma. EX: Jacques Dorfmann. P: Robert Dorfmann. D+SC: Jean-Pierre Melville - based on the novel by Joseph Kessel (1943). DP: Pierre Lhomme. AD: Théo Meurisse. CAST: Lino Ventura (Philippe Gerbier), Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Jean-François Jardie), Claude Mann (Le Masque), Christian Barbier (Le Bison). 143’. 1,66. Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Mindele London / Maya Vanni. Print: SEA / Kinoyhtiö - short version, colour fading in some scenes, duration: 122’. Viewed in Helsinki, SEA, Cinema Orion, Wednesday 18 March 1998. **** In Finnish cinemas, a short 122’ version of the film was released. The full version has only been seen on TV and on video. - I have never seen the full version of this film, and would rather wait for the chance of seeing it on the screen than checking the video, since this story about ”the army of the shadows” is very darkly lit. - Each of Melville’s three Resistance films - Le Silence de la mer, Léon Morin, and L’Armée des ombres - is very powerful, and they all have a new aspect to reveal. The first two are about passive resistance, and the last one, finally, about the active one, where Melville can draw on his own experience. The fact that the film so closely resembles Melville’s gangster films has been a cause for criticism. I would rather think that the gangster films have a metaphorical dimension: their sadness is based on the experience of the Occupation and the presence of Holocaust.

Léon Morin, prêtre

060477 / G / FR / 1961 / Melville, Jean-Pierre / drama
Léon Morin, prêtre / Kiusaus. © Rome-Paris-Films. P: Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard. D+SC: Jean-Pierre Melville - based on the novel by Beatrix Beck (1952). DP: Henri Decaë. CAST: Emmanuelle Riva (Barny), Jean-Paul Belmondo (Léon Morin), Nicole Mirel (Sabine Lévy). 128’. B&w 1,66. Visa de contrôle 24334. Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Aito Mäkinen / Jerker A. Eriksson. Print: SEA / Eurooppalainen filmi - short 115’ version. Viewed in Helsinki, SEA, Cinema Orion, Tuesday 24 February 1998. **** This film is unique in Melville’s oeuvre in many ways and deeply personal in a way apparently different from his thrillers. It is an Occupation drama with a rich texture of authentic detail. It tells the story of a strong Platonic Lesbian relationship. Children, missing from almost all other Melville films, play an important part here. The figure of the priest is one of the most memorable in the history of the cinema. He can be compared with Father O’Malley in Going My Way or preacher Gruffdydd in How Green Was My Valley. What he says is always original and profound. The French Catholic church accepted the film by the devout Atheist Melville. There is more to the film than Melville admitted. Léon Morin is a profound film about the presence of Judaism in Christianity.

Le Silence de la mer / The Silence of the Sea

Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Silence de la mer / The Silence of the Sea (FR 1948). Howard Vernon (Werner von Ebrenac). "Je vous souhaite une bonne nuit".

/ / FR / 1948 / Melville, Jean-Pierre / drama / Meren hiljaisuus. FR © 1948 Melville Productions. EX: Pierre Braunberger. P+D+SC+ED: Jean-Pierre Melville – based on the novel by Vercors [Jean Bruller, 1941]. DP: Henri Decaë. M: Edgar Bischoff. CAST: Howard Vernon (Werner von Ebrenac), Nicole Stéphane (niece), Jean-Marie Robain (uncle). 86’ according to the BFI CD-ROM. B&w Academy. 35 mm print: Centre Culturel Français (Helsinki) / Ministère des affaires étrangères (France) ran 88’. Viewed in Helsinki, SEA, Cinema Orion, Tuesday 10 February 1998. **** Besides the Archive this film has only been seen in Finland on TV 20 years ago, when I first saw it. Now it had grown in laconic force. The exact cinematography, the precise composition and the strong music give tremendous impact to the simple, strange story of a German officer’s desillusion in Occupied France.