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From the beautiful The Lovers through
the achingly soulful Atlantic City all
the way to the ineffably silly Damage,
there hasn't been a career as uneven or as adventurous
as that of Louis Malle. This rerelease of the
prolific French director's 1958 first feature,
a B-movie policier about the unintended consequences
of a crime of passion, is testimony to his ambition,
technical skill and wicked sense of fun, as
well as an introduction to at least one of his
great subjects– the heedlessness of love.
The story's an exquisitely plotted piece of
nothing-very-much: A businessman (Maurice Ronet)
kills his lover's husband, then gets trapped
in an elevator while the aftermath of his crime
rolls out into mayhem. But it's just like Malle
to appreciate a scenario in which a war hero
is a murderer, a war profiteer is his victim,
and a crass German tourist understands more
of character and motive than almost anyone,
except, of course, Lino Ventura's wry detective.
Malle slyly hints at the corrosive effects of
France's colonial excursions in Indochina on
the national psyche. But what makes this swooningly
atmospheric movie a true romance is the face
of Jeanne Moreau in close-up, at once impassive,
devious and tragic as she wanders the rain-soaked
streets of nighttime Paris, all tricked out
in moody black-and-white, with Miles Davis playing
live on the soundtrack. Malle later said that
with Elevator to the Gallows he was reaching
for a blend of Bresson and Hitchcock. He came
sublimely close. |
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