According to a title card at the end of Laissez-Passer, Bertrand Tavernier's fact-based drama of the French film industry in wartime, Maurice Tourneur hated the scripts of the few movies he made post-wwii. So there's that.
But his last film, Impasse des Deux Anges (1948), fascinates. If the script has a flaw, it's that it takes a very simple, predictable story (actress runs away from groom the night before her marriage, with an old lover who's also a jewel thief—pursued through the night by gangsters, they conclude their relationship so she can move on) and attempts to reinvigorate it at regular intervals with dizzying tonal shifts, implausible new characters and sub-plots, and ghostly, somnambular flashbacks. But the flaw is also a strength, since it makes the film jazzy, offbeat and strange.
As the "two angels" (though the title really refers to a dead-end street where they made love in...
But his last film, Impasse des Deux Anges (1948), fascinates. If the script has a flaw, it's that it takes a very simple, predictable story (actress runs away from groom the night before her marriage, with an old lover who's also a jewel thief—pursued through the night by gangsters, they conclude their relationship so she can move on) and attempts to reinvigorate it at regular intervals with dizzying tonal shifts, implausible new characters and sub-plots, and ghostly, somnambular flashbacks. But the flaw is also a strength, since it makes the film jazzy, offbeat and strange.
As the "two angels" (though the title really refers to a dead-end street where they made love in...
- 7/14/2011
- MUBI
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