Review of Le Cercle Rouge (1970) by Augusto A — 16 Jul 2009

Jean-Pierre Melville, where the hell have you been all my life? He's like the french new wave Sergio Leone, reinventing the crime film and noir through the european filter the same way Leone reinvented the western. You can clearly see why his movies influenced the work of John Woo and Quentin Tarantino. Although not as terrific as Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge is still pretty damn good. Like in Le Samourai, Melville's choice to silently observe every single gesture of the characters as they put their plans into action, without ever explaining beforehand what it is exactly that they're doing or even what's their plan to begin with creates a delicious feeling of curiosity. It's like the anti-Hitchcock form of creating suspense, where the audience is kept in the dark just until every single piece falls into place and suddenly everything makes sense. It's brilliant. It all leads to a pretty downbeat and anti-climatic conclusion that feels like nothing more than the inevitable fate these characters are bound to encounter. It's the weight of destiny, which seems to be a recurrent theme on Melville's work. Although I love the movie as it is, I can't help but think that it could benefit from a little trimming and a slightly quicker pace. It's a pretty slow movie, and some portions of it seem unnecessarily long. It's a great 2 hours and 15 minutes film. It could be a 1 hour and 50 minutes masterpiece.

Oh, and Alain Delon sporting a moustache is priceless.