In an act of kindness, a young man sees a drunkard home safely. To his surprise, the drunkard, who lives in a whopping villa the size of a mountain range, offers him a job as a driver. Gradually, our "chauffeur" begins to realize that his employer has more problems than you can shake a stick at. One of these problems consists of a discontented spouse who looks as though she's praying for an atom bomb to fall on France...
Think of a classic black-and-white "noir". What do you expect ? I'd say : a troubled, ambiguous atmosphere, lots of lust, greed and betrayal, a cold-hearted femme fatale holding a man in sexual thrall, a dark or cynical conclusion and an inventive black-and-white cinematography which creates visual jokes, illusions, nightmares. "Retour" has all of these ingredients. In fact, it has all of these ingredients to such an extent that it comes close to being the Platonic idea of a "noir".
"Retour" is a pretty good movie : suspenseful, cunning, well-plotted. The conclusion is indeed crashing... Michèle Morgan pretty much steals the show as a blonde she-wolf of unusual callousness, imagination and resilience. Watch the scene where she "discovers" a corpse and faints into a tiny heap of fragile despair : it's one for the books.
However, the movie also has its flaws. For instance, the criminal subterfuge set in motion (or one of the criminal subterfuges set in motion...) depends on a random woman sleeping AND falling in love with a man she knew about 24 or 48 hours. I would venture to suggest that this is a pretty incredible circumstance, especially when one takes into account a) that young women circa 1950 had little sexual freedom and b) that servants such as maids were justifiably wary of falling pregnant and giving birth to an illegitimate child. (Try raising a child all by yourself on an income of ten dollars a week, while the rest of the world hisses insults at you.)
Still, lovers of the "noir" should watch the movie for a bracing hit of the pure, the strong stuff.
If you like Daniel Ghélin, you can do worse than watch him in "Three days to live", in which he plays a theatre actor who stumbles upon a gangland hit.
Think of a classic black-and-white "noir". What do you expect ? I'd say : a troubled, ambiguous atmosphere, lots of lust, greed and betrayal, a cold-hearted femme fatale holding a man in sexual thrall, a dark or cynical conclusion and an inventive black-and-white cinematography which creates visual jokes, illusions, nightmares. "Retour" has all of these ingredients. In fact, it has all of these ingredients to such an extent that it comes close to being the Platonic idea of a "noir".
"Retour" is a pretty good movie : suspenseful, cunning, well-plotted. The conclusion is indeed crashing... Michèle Morgan pretty much steals the show as a blonde she-wolf of unusual callousness, imagination and resilience. Watch the scene where she "discovers" a corpse and faints into a tiny heap of fragile despair : it's one for the books.
However, the movie also has its flaws. For instance, the criminal subterfuge set in motion (or one of the criminal subterfuges set in motion...) depends on a random woman sleeping AND falling in love with a man she knew about 24 or 48 hours. I would venture to suggest that this is a pretty incredible circumstance, especially when one takes into account a) that young women circa 1950 had little sexual freedom and b) that servants such as maids were justifiably wary of falling pregnant and giving birth to an illegitimate child. (Try raising a child all by yourself on an income of ten dollars a week, while the rest of the world hisses insults at you.)
Still, lovers of the "noir" should watch the movie for a bracing hit of the pure, the strong stuff.
If you like Daniel Ghélin, you can do worse than watch him in "Three days to live", in which he plays a theatre actor who stumbles upon a gangland hit.