Le Passager de la pluie (1969) - film review

Whilst her husband, an airline navigator, is away from home, Mellie is stalked by strange man.  After the man has broken into her home and raped her, Mellie shoots him dead and dumps his body in the sea.  A short while later, the traumatised young woman realises she is being trailed by another man, Colonel Dobbs.  Unsure whether Dobbs is a dangerous crook or an honest policeman, Mellie finds herself drawn into a bizarre game of cat and mouse…

After the commercial failure of his big budget war-time drama Paris brûle-t-il? (1966), director René Clément returned to somewhat safer ground for his next film, the ever-popular psychological thriller.  His previous forays into this genre – Plein soleil (1960) and Les Félins (1964) – were big successes and showed a genuine talent for suspense and intrigue.  Although Le Passager de la pluie isn’t quite in the same league as these two films, it is a compelling and distinctive work, an obvious homage to Hitchcock, but also subtly different to conventional thrillers.

The strength of this particular thriller lies mainly in the performances of its two lead actors, Marlène Jobert and Charles Bronson.  Jobert is particularly good at playing mixed up, terrified but gutsy young women, and the anxiety she portrays on screen is easily transferred to the spectator.  The American actor Charles Bronson needs no introduction but here he appears to be playing across, if not sending up, his confident hard guy image.  Playing a character that is neither obviously good nor bad, Bronson carries the unsettling ambiguity in his part very well.  The rapport between the two actors is both jarring and magical, like a married couple who derive some kind of sado-masochistic pleasure in living together, even though they are clearly ill-suited for one another.

As well as being a thriller, the film is also a strange kind of love story.  Even when he is taunting Mellie to distraction, Colonel Dobbs is clearly drawn to her, and she for her part is easily seduced by his charms and brutal attentions.  The fact that Dobbs’ real intentions are not revealed until near the end of the film adds a dark psychological dimension to what is very nearly a familiar French romantic drama.

Connecting the present drama to a past crisis in Mellie’s life is a nice touch, adding a layer of sophistication which works well in explaining why the characters behave as they do.  Unfortunately, this is somewhat undermined by some bizarre comic elements in the latter part of the film, which propels the narrative dangerously close to self-parody.  Overall, however, the film hangs together very well.  There’s a touch of genius in the final shot – so poignant, yet so irresistibly funny.

© James Travers 2005

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