Le Combat dans l'île (1962)
Directed by Alain Cavalier

Film Review

With the moral and financial support of his friend and mentor Louis Malle, director Alain Cavalier made his feature debut with a film which, whilst all too easily overlooked nowadays, offers a sobering reflection of France's political travails in the late 1950s, early 1960s.  The collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958, brought about partly by lack of political will to resolve the Algerian crisis, had allowed Charles de Gaulle to re-take the presidency (with the backing of the French military) and lay the foundation for the Fifth Republic.  At the outset, De Gaulle's left-leaning opponents were suspicious of his connections with the military and feared that France may be on the brink of surrendering its democratic principles for short-term political necessity.  Le Combat dans l'île can, arguably, be interpreted as an expression of such concerns.  The fact that the film's release was delayed for a year by the government censor suggests there may have been something in this.

It is interesting that in his next film, L'Insoumis (1964), Cavalier showed no qualms over expressing his revulsion for the Algerian war and his contempt for the political class that had had a hand in this drawn-out national disaster.  Le Combat dans l'île is, by contrast, a far more cautious work, a tentative allegory rather than a front-frontal assault against the De Gaulle presidency.  The climactic duel in the film can be seen as a metaphor for the struggle that was taking place on France's political stage in the early 1960s, the struggle between true democracy, flawed and inefficient as it may be, and a kind of rightwing fanaticism 'to get things done' at any price.

That Alain Cavalier was heavily influenced by his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries is obvious in his first feature, both in its visual style and its subject matter.  Like Godard and Truffaut before him, Cavalier pays homage to classic American film noir, employing many of the old film noir motifs, appropriately for a film in which honour and betrayal play a central part.  In true New Wave fashion, the film waltzes vertiginously, almost drunkenly, between ill-fitting genres, disguising its deeper political messages behind various veils and screens which try, somewhat unconvincingly, to delude the spectator into thinking this is just another B-movie thriller-cum-melodrama.  Whilst Le Combat dans l'île can certainly be enjoyed as a run-of-the-mill thriller, it is clear that it has a much darker purpose and surprisingly, for a film that was intended as a commentary on French politics in the early 1960s, it continues to have a powerful resonance.  The most cursory glance at today's news headlines is enough to remind us that democracy is not something we can ever take for granted - it is a fragile thing that must be protected at all times from the dark, corrupting influences that would so dearly like to take its name.

The main joy of Le Combat dans l'île is its flawless casting of the three main characters, all of whom should be instantly recognisable to any French film aficionado.  Headlining the film is the beautiful Romy Schneider, a well-known Austrian actress who had found national celebrity a few years earlier in the Sissi films, a series of historical romances about the early life of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria.  Having grown tired of Sissi, Schneider was determined to put the role behind her by relaunching her career in France.  She made her French film debut in Robert Siodmak's Katia (1959) and then had a notable supporting role in Orson Welles' Le Procès (a.k.a. The Trial) (1962).  Between these two films, Schneider lent her considerable talents to Alain Cavalier's first film, starring alongside two other formidable up-and-coming actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Henri Serre.

Trintignant had first come to prominence a few years earlier, playing the male lead opposite Brigitte Bardot in Roger Vadim's groundbreaking Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956).  The maelstrom of publicity that this film whipped up was more than Trintignant, a modest and unassuming man, could tolerate, and his military service provided a welcome escape from the gaze of sensation-seeking journalists.   On his return to civilian life a few years later, badly shaken by his experiences of active service in Algeria, Trintignant made a hasty return to acting, and by the time he appeared in Le Combat dans l'île he was pretty well established as one of the most promising young things in French cinema.  The role Trintignant plays in this film is somewhat atypical - a psychotic tough guy who does not flinch from hitting women and shooting dead his best friends - but it seems to suit him perfectly, the cool sadistic veneer barely concealing a weak man who is being slowly eaten away by his insecurity and paranoid obsessions.  Eight years later, Trintignant would effectively reprise the role for director Bernardo Bertolucci in Il Conformista (1970), one of his career highpoints.

Suitably cast as Trintignant's nemesis is Henri Serre, an actor who could not be more different.  Serre had only recently found national and international fame through his leading role in François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962) - and tumbled into virtual obscurity just a few years later.  Le Combat dans l'île gave Serre one of his most substantial film roles, one that is not too far removed from the one he had played so superbly in Jules et Jim.  Serre's engaging persona, towering physique and sustained air of insouciance make an effective contrast with Trintignant's diminutive stature and pent-up antagonism, although both actors bring so many layers to their performances that they each arouse our interest and our sympathy.  Serre's character would appear to be the conventional hero, but his reasoned, pacifistic standpoint is soon shown to be shallow and hypocritical, whilst Trintignant's character at least has the virtue of being consistent and based on an unshakable moral conviction, albeit one that is deeply flawed.  Together, Schneider, Trintignant, and Serre form an unbeatable triumvirate of talent that makes Le Combat dans l'île a compelling and deeply unsettling study in those familiar themes of love, loyalty and betrayal.  Like so much of Cavalier's work, this is a film that is badly in need of a fresh reappraisal.

Film Synopsis

Clément Lesser belongs to a clandestine group of rightwing political extremists who have no time for democracy and who believe in taking political power by force.  When an assassination attempt goes awry, Clément discovers he has been betrayed by another member of his group and pursues him to South America to carry out a well-deserved execution.  During his absence, his wife Anne stays with an old school friend, Paul, who runs a small printing business and is a committed democrat.  Anne and Paul are inevitably drawn to one another and embark on a love affair.  Anne agrees to resume her former acting career by taking the lead role in a stage play written by Paul's dead wife.  On his return to France, Clément is outraged when he learns of his wife's infidelity.  He challenges Paul to a pistol duel and gives his adversary no choice but to take part in the deadly contest...