I have found this war melodrama very interesting, sharp and intelligentthough (or,better:
and also
) highly melodramatic. Extraordinary acted, and exquisitely written, it delivers a shock after another .It is in the line of the most delightful European cinematographic tradition. Many deaths, excellent dialogs, and truly powerhouse performances from Jean-Pierre Marielle as the prosecutor Pierre-Ange Destinat,and Jacques Villeret as judge Mierck;it is a curious combination of discretion and understatement, on the one hand, and shocking melodrama,on the other.Well made picture of the French province during the war.
The quality of the actors is indeed striking.
And these charactersthese richly depicted characters, so admirably seizedwhere do they come from? From Poe's pages? From Courteline's folios?
The almost surreal and thrilling atmosphere, the mysterious labyrinth of fate, the brutality of the facts and the suavity of a choice poetry, the weirdness, the bizarre air, the flux of strangeness; also the skill, the craft, the science of delivering an exquisite show of ambiguity and bitterness .Within the today cinema's context, these things are absolutely extraordinary. Grey Souls is a delicious film. Implausibly well acted (by a Marielle who keeps looking very old of so many years now ,and a ferocious, _zoomorphic, no less able Villeretin one of his best roles ever).
On the spiral, the enigmas of the heart, the hidden luxury of the decay .Consciously seeking the affiliation to a decadent aesthetics, the movie opens a world of enigmatic and threatening, violent, or,on the contrary, humble and meek or frightened silhouettes.
Maybe it is Villeret the one who gave his best hereso leisurely he moves, acts, along these _couloirs of mystery that might make one think of a (much more serious) film like Welles' truly unequaled The Lady from Shanghai (1947).
The director chosen the strong underlining of the melodramatic events, against the discretion ;it is a film of deliberately produced effects, underlined and loudly stated. On the other hand, this melodramatic machinery or clockwork is deft and skillful without being rudimentary and coarse.
The quality of the actors is indeed striking.
And these charactersthese richly depicted characters, so admirably seizedwhere do they come from? From Poe's pages? From Courteline's folios?
The almost surreal and thrilling atmosphere, the mysterious labyrinth of fate, the brutality of the facts and the suavity of a choice poetry, the weirdness, the bizarre air, the flux of strangeness; also the skill, the craft, the science of delivering an exquisite show of ambiguity and bitterness .Within the today cinema's context, these things are absolutely extraordinary. Grey Souls is a delicious film. Implausibly well acted (by a Marielle who keeps looking very old of so many years now ,and a ferocious, _zoomorphic, no less able Villeretin one of his best roles ever).
On the spiral, the enigmas of the heart, the hidden luxury of the decay .Consciously seeking the affiliation to a decadent aesthetics, the movie opens a world of enigmatic and threatening, violent, or,on the contrary, humble and meek or frightened silhouettes.
Maybe it is Villeret the one who gave his best hereso leisurely he moves, acts, along these _couloirs of mystery that might make one think of a (much more serious) film like Welles' truly unequaled The Lady from Shanghai (1947).
The director chosen the strong underlining of the melodramatic events, against the discretion ;it is a film of deliberately produced effects, underlined and loudly stated. On the other hand, this melodramatic machinery or clockwork is deft and skillful without being rudimentary and coarse.