1966 meta crime picture
Rating: 16/20
Plot: A trio create a crime drama while riding on a train.
I'm not completely sure this movie from Alain Robbe-Grillet, the guy who wrote the puzzling Last Year at Marienbad, is as witty or clever as it thinks it is. The meta hijinks kept me on my toes, but to be honest, the crime story itself--always shifting, backtracking, and surprising--was almost interesting enough without it. There's a whole lot of suave here. Jean-Louis Trintignant is a cool customer anyway, probably because of the way he wears that jacket. I love how the camera follows him around, somehow giving us the same sense of paranoia he should probably be feeling. He's a character who is seemingly in a town where every single other inhabitant is either the law or part of this drug-trafficking network, and as the boss dicks around with him and tests him, the director is similarly playing games with us. My favorite scenes include one where a bunch of guys keep popping out behind walls with guns like in one of those Wild West shooting ranges, any scene that is repeated or mutated as the writers on the train change their minds, and one of the last scenes that takes place in a club and involves some rotating and some nudity.
This is another one of those European puzzle movies, but there's this sneaky humor and that irresistible coolness that really keeps it breezy. It's like Seijun Suzuki decided to make a French crime movie, and if that sounds like your sort of thing, I think you'll really dig this.
That aforementioned scene involving rotation and nudity might be my new favorite scene in any movie, by the way. Marie-France Pisier was nearly hypnotic anyway, but when you add her nakedness, rotation, and some chains? Oh, mama.
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