Film Review
Coming towards the end of Claude Chabrol's second gold run of
films, which ran from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s,
Nada stands out as something of an
oddity - a mix of political thriller and black comedy which has a far
darker, far more ironic edge than anything Chabrol directed in this,
arguably his best, era. Based on a popular
série noire novel by
Jean-Patrick Manchette, the film reflects both the public's growing
appetite for grimly realistic action thrillers and the perceived threat
from increasingly militant leftwing activists.
Whereas Chabrol's previous populist thrillers -
Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche
(1964) and its equally bland sequel - stuck to a tried and tested
formula to maximise audience size and consequently had virtually no
intellectual merit,
Nada
looks like a conventional thriller but is one with an underlying
political subtext, and a potent one at that. In fact, this is
possibly Chabrol's most overtly political film, and certainly
one of his most scathing satires on contemporary society.
One of the concerns shared by many people at the time was the extent to
which the State would go to maintain an ordered society. As was
reflected in the neo-polar novels and films of the period, there was
a belief that the police would transcend moral boundaries, with the
complicity of wealthy businessmen and legislators, to safeguard the
interests of those who most benefited from maintaining the status quo
(coincidentally, wealthy businessmen and legislators).
In
Nada, the ragtag band of
fair weather terrorists find themselves pitted against an insuperable
enemy, professional State-sponsored terrorists in the guise of the
police. The outcome is certain - the Nada group is obliterated
with ruthless efficiency, their message and threat totally
neutralised (well, almost). Those that perform this necessary clean-up
operation are themselves revealed to be pawns in a wider political game
and end up no better off. The true villains are not the police,
but the mandarins sitting at the apex of our supposedly benign
democratic system, the unseen guardians whose job it is to protect us -
from ourselves. Watching the film today, when the threat of
terrorism is omnipresent, the film is as relevant as when it was first released (perhaps more so). Who should we fear most -
homicidal extremists made of clay or those god-like protectors
in palaces of state who sit
in judgement over us all? The answer is self-evident. We
should fear both.
© James Travers 2008
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Next Claude Chabrol film:
Les Innocents aux mains sales (1975)
Film Synopsis
Nada is a small leftwing terrorist group made up of six people from
very different backgrounds. Diaz, the most militant of the
group, plans to kidnap the American ambassador Richard Poindexter, in a
bid to draw attention to their cause. One of the group,
Treuffais, a timid philosophy teacher, will have no part in this and
walks away. His five comrades succeed in spiriting Poindexter
away to a remote farmhouse. Unfortunately for them, the police
chief who is assigned to the case sees the elimination of the
terrorists as having much greater priority than rescuing the ambassador...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.