Film Review
If Alex Joffé is remembered today it is for the series of
popular films (mostly comedies) that he made with Bourvil at the height
of his popularity - engaging crowdpleasers such as
Les
Hussards (1955),
Fortunat (1960) and
Le
Tracassin (1961). Joffé's non-Bourvil films are
mostly forgotten although two -
Les
Assassins du dimanche (1956) and
Les Fanatiques (1957) - definitely
deserve a reappraisal, both being fairly respectable entries in the
suspense-thriller line.
Les
Fanatiques is of particular interest as it is one of the
earliest examples of what came to be known as the disaster movie.
Despite its modest budget, it surpasses
Airport (1970) and its sequels
both in the tautness of its narrative and the originality of its
mise-en-scène. The film's other innovation is that the
action takes place in real time, something that can only add to its
dramatic impact and tension.
Joffé was rarely the most inspired of film directors but the
constraints imposed him by
Les
Fanatiques (particularly the fact that the second half of the
film is confined entirely to the cramped interior of a small airliner)
certainly fired his creativity and his work here is arguably his
best. Assisted by one of French cinema's legendary
cinematographers, Léonce-Henri Burel (whose credits include Abel
Gance's
Napoléon and Robert
Bresson's
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc),
Joffé delivers one of the most absorbing French thrillers of the
decade - and it's hard to believe that Alfred Hitchcock had no hand in
it.
After a somewhat superfluous prologue depicting a chaotic revolution in
some South American country, the film gets off to a cracking start with
a private duel between two revolutionaries intent on assassinating
their country's military dictator (Grégoire Aslan). Right
from the outset Pierre Fresnay and Michel Auclair are presented as
moral opposites, Fresnay a true fanatic who has no qualms about killing
innocent people to achieve a political outcome, Auclair a more moderate
kind of activist cursed with a conscience and respect for human
life. In this first act, the suspense derives from Fresnay's
constantly thwarted attempts to smuggle a typewriter fitted with a
powerful explosive device onto a commercial aeroplane. It's black
comedy à la Hitchcock, with the gods clearly siding with Auclair
and having no end of fun at Fresnay's expense. With no option
left open to him, Fresnay ends up having to board the airliner himself,
with his deadly item of luggage set to explode in just thirty minutes'
time. This is where the film begins proper and what ensues is
half an hour of almost unbearable tension that builds to a spectacular
nail-biting climax.
Compelling as ever in one of his last films, Pierre Fresnay does a
superb job of revealing the inner moral conflict that starts to nibble
away at his character's resolve when he wakes up to the consequences of
his terrorist act. As the characters are not particularly well
drawn the main thing that prevents
Les
Fanatiques from being a routine thriller is Fresnay's gripping
performance, which, matching his character's moral progression, manages
to span the dramatic range, starting out chilling and darkly humorous
and ending up startlingly humane. In a few scenes, Fresnay does
tend to overplay the sinister card, slightly over-emphasising the
film's comedic undertones. Today, it seems hardly credible that
such a suspicious-looking individual could get anywhere near an
airliner, let alone smuggle a bomb (and gun) on board, but back in the
1950s airline security was lax to the point of being virtually
non-existent.
Les Fanatiques
isn't just a highly entertaining thriller, it also makes a grim
cautionary satire, one that delights in mocking the complacency of an
industry that had yet to wake up to the threat posed by
terrorists. Pity it had to take more than forty years before the
airlines got the message...
© James Travers, Willems Henri 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
When he learns that a revolution has broken out in his own country
whilst he is away in France, South American dictator Ribera decides to
return home in a private plane, accompanied by his wife and some
security guards. Even though all of the usual security
precautions are taken, two men at the airport manage to conceal a bomb
on Ribera's plane. One of these is the revolutionary Luis Vargas;
the other is his friend, an airport manager named Diego. While
Vargas is waiting for Ribera's departure, Diego gets a message from the
revolutionary group that Ribera has changed his mind at the last
minute. Instead of his original plan, he now intends to take a
flight to Italy which leaves in 45 minutes. When Diego breaks the
bad news to Vargas he is surprised that the revolutionary still intends
to murder Ribera. Vargas takes the bomb from Ribera's plane and
puts it into a suitcase that he intends taking on board the flight to
Italy. He has no thought for his own life, nor for the lives of
the fifty other passengers on the same flight...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.