 | Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot Format: Black & White PAL Released: 14 Mar 2005 RRP: Average Rating:  |
This, of course, was the film that earned Clouzot a lasting reputation as a collaborator - made for the infamous German Continental films, it was attacked by both the Nazis for discouraging the French from informing (their main source of information during the occupation) & the resistance for attacking the French moral character. Of the two, it's pretty obvious the Nazis were on the right track. Even though the Germans are conspicuous by their absence, it makes clear that the anonymous informer/s are undermining solidarity & making the town easy prey for predators (it is implicit in the film that the Raven is not the only poison-pen writer in the town as a veritable flock of Ravens emerge).
The suspense comes not from the Raven's identity, which is blindingly obvious in this era of double-endings but must have seemed groundbreaking at the time, but from what damage the Raven will do next. Blessed with a surprisingly unlikable hero & a frankness lacking in US & British films of the period - abortion & drug-addiction are discussed as readily as adultery & embezzlement - there is a somewhat awkward Catholic moral imposed at the end (the good doctor learns it is better to let a mother die in childbirth to save the child than vice versa because the future is more important than the past) but it's still refreshingly dark. The script establishes character, setting & guilty secrets with remarkable economy & the film is blessed with a great use of location & some visuallly impressive set pieces: the funeral where people step around a letter left by the Raven before a child picks it up or the huge church silenced by a single letter fluttering down from the galllery are particularly striking. It also has a biting black wit & an interesting discussion about the interdependent nature of good & evil.
A genuine masterpiece, & entertaining with it, this UK DVD offers little in the way of extras (the R1 Criterion DVD boasts an interesting 18-minute interview with Bertran Tavernier on Continental & Clouzot & an interesting extract from a French documentary with Clouzot & others talking about the film & French cinema during the Nazi occupation), but the film is so good is still well worth investing in a copy.
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