Film Review
After the failure of
La
Croix des vivants (1962), his most inspired film, Belgian director
Ivan Govar would have been forgiven for giving up filmmaking altogether and
instead opting for a saner profession where success isn't so dramatically
decided by the whims and caprices of his clientele and a few opinionated
snobs. By now, with five films under his belt and popular recognition
as elusive as ever, Govar was becoming inured to failure, so he carried on
- and made three further flops before he finally chucked in the towel, at
the ripe old age of thirty. Obscurity came swiftly and today Govar
is all but forgotten, his work appreciated only by a faithful band of followers
who see the merit of his quaintly individualistic style of cinema.
All this is a shame because Govar, whilst hardly the most inspired of filmmakers,
did bring a distinctive flair to his films, and this is apparent in the film
he made directly after
La Croix des vivants -
Un soir, par hasard (a.k.a.
Agent of Doom),
a strange little thriller that looks like something the British film company
Hammer or its rival Amicus may have knocked out around this time. The
film is adapted from Robert Collard's novel
L'Aventure commencera ce soir
and makes the most of its creepy, Nigel Kneale-like fusion of science-fiction
and supernatural fantasy, which it manages to sustain brilliantly (however
ludicrous the plot) through some stylish photography, camerawork and editing.
After setting up the film's absurd premise so masterfully, Govar allows the
whole thing to come crashing down in the concluding thirty minutes and it
all ends up (as it was perhaps bound to) as a ludicrously far-fetched spy
thriller.
Up until the fatal one hour mark, Govar and his three principal actors do
a magnificent job of hooking us and drawing us into their bizarre fantasy
world, one that carries strange echoes of Cocteau's
La Belle et la bête
(1946). Michel Le Royer is the attractive lead, a classic sixties babe
magnet who is the only member of the cast not to appear completely unhinged.
The actor had a brief period of stardom playing flamboyant heroic parts -
previously he had taken the lead in Jean Dréville's
La Fayette (1962), later he would
feature in two hugely successful French television shows of the period -
Le
Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (1963) and
Corsaires et Flibustiers (1966).
Looking more like a scrummy centrefold from a woman's magazine than the ace
nuclear physicist he is supposed to be playing, Le Royer makes a handsome
playmate for the even more photogenic Annette Stroyberg, who had recently
found fame by marrying Roger Vadim and taking on a suitably lurid part in
his film
Les Liaisons
dangereuses (1960). Govar certainly makes the most of his lead
actors' blatant sex appeal, with a few tasteful digressions into arty eroticism
that add to both the film's sensuous allure and its eerie lyricism.
Thankfully, Jean Servais and Pierre Brasseur are on hand to prevent the
film from turning into a fully fledged blue movie, their creepy presence
strengthening the grim aura that pervades the film. Servais still hasn't
progressed much beyond the noir heavy he played so successfully in Jules
Dassin's
Du rififi chez
les hommes (1955), but his threatening, lugubrious persona makes
his shady Piort a suitably ambiguous character and prevents us from guessing
the truth too quickly. Pierre Brasseur is just as adept at playing
a double game, although his reputation for screen villainy precedes him and
it's not so much of a surprise when his character's true nature is revealed
to us. It's a tribute to both the imaginative flair that Govar's brings
to his direction and the spell-binding quality of the performances that we
hardly notice that
Un soir, par hasard is a fairly low-budget four-hander
- at least not until the plot suddenly comes unravelled in its final act.
Govar made only two more films after this -
Que personne ne sorte (1962)
and
Deux heures à tuer
(1965) - two quirky thrillers that, whilst hardly original, make entertaining
viewing.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
At an important research centre in Saclay, just outside Paris, 20-year-old
atomic physicist André Ségonne has made what could well be one
of the scientific breakthroughs of the century when he creates a small quantity
of anti-matter in his laboratory. In the delirium of success, André
sets off on his motorbike for a well-deserved holiday but skids off the road
into a tree and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he finds himself
in a strange old mansion somewhere in the country, attended to by a mysterious
older man, Piort, and his stunningly beautiful châtelaine, Florence.
Piort explains that in his accident André sustained a fatal brain
fracture, but he was restored to life by the unexplained healing properties
of the house. Piort demonstrates this by bringing back to life a dead
cat and adds that the house not only conquers death, it can also slow down
the ageing process. This is confirmed when the three visit a Paris
nightclub and a stranger, Colonel Charlèze, positively identifies Florence
as a woman he knew thirty years ago, even though she is barely twenty.
Exploring the old house, André then comes across several portraits
of Florence that were painted at different periods over the last hundred years.
Is it possible she has lived for over a century, her ageing completely
arrested by some unknown force residing in the house? His curiosity
aroused, André agrees to assist Piort in locating the source of the
life-preserving force, which he believes may be radioactive in origin.
As soon as the source has been found, André is drugged and wakes up
beside the road where he had his accident. Returning to the house, he
finds that Piort and Florence have departed, leaving no clue as to their present
whereabouts. Concerned for Florence's safety, André enlists
Charlèze's help in finding them, but as he does so he unwittingly falls
into a carefully constructed trap...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.