Clouzot was a very strange director. Even he admitted that he used suspense as a device to examine his characters. Only Diabolique seems to have any real suspense. The nitro in this film is used the same as the letters in The Raven and the murder in Quai Des Ouvres: he is up to his old tricks of immersing you in the rot and smell of existence: buzzards, spitting, smoke coming disgustingly out of noses during a kind of Russian Roulette, etc. Only one other film do you feel the sheer heat of a place as much as this: Stray Dog. Nineteen Fifty three was more or less around the apotheosis of Existentialism, And Clouzot hardly needed a bedside copy of Being and Nothingness for his handbook. This film, because of it's length, has the greatest wealth of his bodily references.... Even down to Vera Clouzot's underarm hair: you see a flash of it as she raises her hands in a dance turn with Folco Lulli, and how often do you ever see a woman's underarms not shaved, even in French Films, much less anywhere else. For those who found the film suspenseful, fine. I didn't. Not at its heart, anyway. That would be like saying Polanski's Repulsion was suspenseful. Both are films of immersion, descents into madness and chaos. And now here is a spoiler: if you do not want to know how the movie ends, bye bye. The end is ludicrous. But then so are most in his films. None of them hold up very well, with the possible exception of the the end of Diabolique: its mystical take kind of works. However, the mystical take of Montand's death here is simply stupid. If he has to go off the road and down a cliff, let the truck he is driving simply suffer a sudden blowout, or differential fatigue, some kind of mechanical malfunction...not playing with it on the road like a three year old......and even then, certainly not have Vera Clouzot know telepathically that he has gone over to his death. But there are so many fine touches in this movie, you watch it for them. Too bad it could not have been a much more disciplined effort, but what it there makes most movies today seem tired and trite. Also, for those interested, notice the striking similarity of the opening images of this film, and the first shots of The Wild Bunch. Just too bad he could not have ended the film on such a pure note. But bravo anyway, great treat, wonderful film.
Review of The Wages of Fear
