Trans-Europ-Express (1967)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 90m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, Nadine Verdier
Synopsis:
The director boards the eponymous train with his producer and wife/script girl, and together they construct a possible narrative involving a man, a suitcase with false bottom, and an organisation in Anvers which is testing him for a trafficking operation involving drugs, or is it diamonds?
Review:
This Godardian riff on a certain genre of policier, complete with orchestral inflections from La Traviata, starts off quite funny but then gets repetitive, showing how unreal and deliberately confusing this much loved style of entertainment really is. Trintignant, whose character indulges his rape fantasies with a prostitute (or agent, or police informer?) in between wandering from hotel to docks to left luggage locker, brings off the confidence trick acting strokes required of him very well, playing it for the most part very straight. The film is, however, essentially a jeu d'esprit on the part of Robbe-Grillet, who considers, then discards, ideas in conference with his colleagues, and uses the camera very much as a creative 'inner eye', musing over which shots to use, or how his actors will play it: Marie-France on the bed, Marie-France by the bed, Jean-Louis throwing his parcel first this way, then that.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 90m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, Nadine Verdier
Synopsis:
The director boards the eponymous train with his producer and wife/script girl, and together they construct a possible narrative involving a man, a suitcase with false bottom, and an organisation in Anvers which is testing him for a trafficking operation involving drugs, or is it diamonds?
Review:
This Godardian riff on a certain genre of policier, complete with orchestral inflections from La Traviata, starts off quite funny but then gets repetitive, showing how unreal and deliberately confusing this much loved style of entertainment really is. Trintignant, whose character indulges his rape fantasies with a prostitute (or agent, or police informer?) in between wandering from hotel to docks to left luggage locker, brings off the confidence trick acting strokes required of him very well, playing it for the most part very straight. The film is, however, essentially a jeu d'esprit on the part of Robbe-Grillet, who considers, then discards, ideas in conference with his colleagues, and uses the camera very much as a creative 'inner eye', musing over which shots to use, or how his actors will play it: Marie-France on the bed, Marie-France by the bed, Jean-Louis throwing his parcel first this way, then that.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 90m
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, Nadine Verdier
Synopsis:
The director boards the eponymous train with his producer and wife/script girl, and together they construct a possible narrative involving a man, a suitcase with false bottom, and an organisation in Anvers which is testing him for a trafficking operation involving drugs, or is it diamonds?
Review:
This Godardian riff on a certain genre of policier, complete with orchestral inflections from La Traviata, starts off quite funny but then gets repetitive, showing how unreal and deliberately confusing this much loved style of entertainment really is. Trintignant, whose character indulges his rape fantasies with a prostitute (or agent, or police informer?) in between wandering from hotel to docks to left luggage locker, brings off the confidence trick acting strokes required of him very well, playing it for the most part very straight. The film is, however, essentially a jeu d'esprit on the part of Robbe-Grillet, who considers, then discards, ideas in conference with his colleagues, and uses the camera very much as a creative 'inner eye', musing over which shots to use, or how his actors will play it: Marie-France on the bed, Marie-France by the bed, Jean-Louis throwing his parcel first this way, then that.