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Bob le flambeur
This light, breezy 1955 heist film is probably the least characteristic movie Jean-Pierre Melville ever made. It replaces his sternly fatalistic philosophizing with a benign, genuinely comic spirit, and his rigidly classical style yields to a pleasant informality. Yet the characters--professional gamblers, craftsmanly safecrackers--and their code are recognizably Melvillian, and the portrait of Pigalle after dark is superbly evocative and romantic. The plot--a gambler on a streak of bad luck plans the robbery of the Deauville casino--is largely lifted from Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, though the suspense has been wittily inverted: we're made to hope that the robbery doesn't come off. In French with subtitles. PG, 100 min. |
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