This is the second appearance on my blog for two French men, director Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambeur) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless) and both have grown on me immensely. I'll just start off by saying I really enjoyed this movie!
Doulos is the French word for hat, but to the world of cops and robbers it also means informant. Rappers would love this movie. It has it all, gangsters, tough guys, honor among thieves and of course the code of the street, "Stop snitching." The main focus of Le Doulos revolves around trying to decipher the actions and motivations of Silien (Belmondo) who seemingly snitches on his friend Maurice in a heist. Maurice is convinced Silien is an informant and must decide what to do about it. For his part Silien does some pretty unsavory stuff throughout the film to make us believe he is at least of questionable morals, but is he a snitch? Why does he do the things he does throughout the film? There are plot twists galore and the details of the plot are pretty intricate, but it is nowhere near the labyrinth that The Big Sleep is.
But like The Big Sleep, the whole point of this film is its style and watching Belmondo do his best Bogart. As I mentioned in my blog entry about Bob le Flambeur, Jean-Pierre Melville loved all things American and if Le Doulos wasn't in French you'd have no idea that it wasn't filmed in 1940's Hollywood. Everything about the movie screams classic noir. Shadow intensive cinematography, crime drama plot, the tough guys, sexy dames, and hard boiled dialogue? Check, check, check, check and check. The film is intentionally exaggerated in that regard. Everybody in the film wears a trench coat and fedora. These supposedly sophisticated Frenchies like their liquor hard, scotch and whiskey only please. Standard locations include sleazy bars and fancy night clubs. One scene uses so much shadow that it intentionally hides a character's face and since everyone wears a trench coat you don't really have any idea who it is.
This isn't just Melville's ode to his favorite gangster films though. It is also combines elements of the French New Wave that gives it a different kind of edge. One thing that I tried to focus on were any unorthodox scenes in terms of camera movement or editing. A scene that jumped out to me was when the police take Silien in for questioning. The camera is set up square in the middle of the room and swivels back and forth following the characters and their conversations. As Silien talks with the detective, rather than cut back and forth between the two the camera instead moves right to left to right to left (something that I noticed Woody Allen does a lot in his films). Then later in the scene the camera follows the detective as he makes a complete 360 degree circle around the room, then he paces back in the other direction and goes another 180 degrees. This entire interrogation scene is shot in a single take with no cuts or editing lasting over eight minutes! Great job by the actors and an even better job of directing by Melville.
The star of the film is Belmondo who just exudes cool from his pores, something I noticed right away from his role in Breathless. It is impossible to look at him and not see a little bit (or a lot) of Bogart in him. He's just fantastic.
I don't want to ruin the ending but the last ten minutes are great. The closing shot has so much style that it is almost a cliche and I mean that in the best possible way.
Note: One complaint someone might have about this film is that it is misogynistic and Belmondo has some really good slaps that would make Sean Connery blush. Melville would defend himself stating something to the effect, "I'm not misogynistic towards women, the characters are!"
Grade: A
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