Le dieuxieme souffle (“Second Wind”)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville and José Giovanni from a novel by Giovanni
1966/France
Les Productions Montaigne
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] It so happens that the gangster story is a very suitable vehicle for the particular form of modern tragedy called film noir, which was born from American detective novels. It’s a flexible genre. You can put whatever you want into it, good or bad. And it’s a fairly easy vehicle to use to tell stories that matter to you about individual freedom, friendship, or rather human relationships, because they’re not always friendly. Or betrayal, one of the driving forces in American crime novels. — Jean-Pierre Melville[/box]
A brutal, detailed, and realistic late French noir. Worth watching, despite its length.
Gustave (“Gu”) Minda (Lino Ventura) is a notorious French criminal. He is the lone survivor of an audacious prison escape with two fellow inmates. He heads for Paris where he meets up with lover Manouche and former criminal associates. Shots soon ring out in her restaurant and what will be a high body count begins to mount.
Police inspector Commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) is on the case and has solved it from first glance. But it seems he doesn’t mind too much if underworld rivals continue to rub each other out. Gu goes into hiding in Marseilles and eventually is taken on as the fourth in the holdup of a platinum transport. As usual, the anti-hero vows one last job and never to return to prison. Plenty of double crosses on the way to the explosive finale.
Melville creates a striking sense of realism while telling his tale of “honor” among thieves and its betrayal. The acting is fantastic. Love Blot! I think I might have liked it better had the screenwriters picked up the pace but recommend it nonetheless to fans of the genre or director.
The investigation begins
