'Doulos' is Parisian argot for a 'hat', and without giving anything away about the plot, I can reveal that the final shot is of a hat, which must be the director Jean-Pierre Melville's little joke. But the meaning of 'doulos' amongst the French police is 'an informer'. And this film does deal with a police informer. It is a crime thriller which is partially what the French call a 'policier', meaning we witness the police in action against criminals. But the majority of the film is not really about the police at all, as they are merely responders to events out of their control. The film concentrates on a number of gangsters and crooks, as well as their girls. The plot twists and turns are really astonishing, and every time we think we know what is going on and who is doing what to whom and why, we discover that we are wrong. The film is based upon a novel by Pierre Lesou, who also wrote the excellent thriller SANS SOMMATION (WITHOUT WARNING, 1973, see my review). This is a genuine film noir which is heavily influenced by American films of the same genre, since it is well known that Melville was obsessed with American movies of the forties and fifties. Those interested in cinema history will be interested to know that Volker Schlöndorff was Melville's first assistant director for this film. The main character is played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, with his youthful energy and vigour. He is always in his trench coat and hat. He does not take them off indoors, and indeed he keeps them on while he is beating up and tying up a woman in her flat. We do once see him in a bedroom scene without his coat and hat, so that we do know he doesn't necessarily sleep in them, or at least he does not do so when circumstances are amorous. But then no one really takes off their trench coat and hat in this film when they are indoors. When we see Police Inspector Salignari sitting at his desk in police headquarters, and he answers the phone to take a call, he is sitting in a thick overcoat and hat, even though he had not just arrived and sat down at that moment. Are we to presume that there was no heating in any of these buildings? Or is this all a style choice? Is Melville hamming it up by having everybody in their coats and hats while indoors, carrying his imitation of Hollywood thrillers to intentionally exaggerated lengths? Half way through the film we also get a shot of Belmondo's fedora on its own with a hat check girl sticking the number 13 into it. Is this a message? One never knows when Melville is playing and when he is serious. But plenty of people get shot in this film, and one car goes over a quarry cliff hundreds of feet high with a girl inside. So some of that is serious. We discover that the murders we see and thought we understood at first were not really carried out for the reasons we thought. There are layers and layers of story here, and plenty to keep you guessing.
Review of The Informer
