Le Matelot 512 (1984)

Le Matelot 512 is a French film first released in 1984, directed by René Allio.  The film is based on a novel by Emile Guinde and stars Dominique Sanda, Jacques Penot, Bruno Cremer, Laure Duthilleul and Michel Piccoli.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Max has great ambitions for a career in the French navy.  His enthusiasm impresses his Commandant, who takes the young sailor under his wing.  Max repays his superior’s generosity by first mating his housemaid, Colette, and then his wife, Mireille.   The months pass and Max learns that Colette is pregnant with his child.  Max is torn between the two women, but the seductress Mireille proves more forceful at winning him back…

Attractive camera work and pretty locations cannot disguise the fact that this is a tacky piece of melodrama.  The over-reliance on voice-over narration merely reinforces the film’s many weaker points – lack of dramatic tension, painfully wooden acting, uneven narrative, etc.

© James Travers 2004

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