Saturday, May 12, 2018

Serie Noir, 1979, France


Based on the Jim Thompson novel, A Hell of a Woman. The "woman" in this movie was 17-years-old which I found troubling. A little like Taxi Driver. A door-to-door salesman whose boss and wife don't care for him at all becomes involved with a teenage prostitute who bails him out of jail and, barely speaking, convinces him to help rob her aunt who's been acting as her pimp.

I don't know why France always looks like such a hellhole in French movies. Seems to take place mostly in an industrial area. There's money missing at work and this is enough for the guy's boss to have him arrested. There are homosexual Nazi bikers dancing to the music of Elvis Presley. The salesman comes home from work and finds his lazy wife sitting there in a bathrobe surrounded by squalor, but that can happen anywhere---can't blame France. Once his wife leaves him and he cleans the place up, it looks pretty nice.

The girl doesn't say much. Just stares at him. If he says something mildly troubling she starts to leave. She keeps throwing her arms around him. She's terribly annoying.

But I'm giving the wrong impression. The movie was pretty good.

Like Breaking Bad if Walter White had been a moron. Like In Cold Blood if violence hadn't come naturally to the murderers. Like Double Indemnity if everyone in it had been really, really seedy.

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