Satisfying bit of post-war French existentialism. Clearly informed by American Noir, the universe of this film is, however, a very different one than that of the American films.
The society of American Noir is one in which the old, patriarchal values have been eroded by the absence of men during the war. Women have become independent, and therefor dangerous, leading the traumatized former soldiers astray into darkness. The downfall of such characters in most Noir is the reinstatement of order, or at least of justice. Perhaps the world is no longer one that deserves happiness, but it will not be a place where transgression is rewarded.
The characters in this French film engage in many illegal, dangerous activities. Yet the film does not feel the need to moralize about them. Indeed, neither does law enforcement, which is depicted here as simply another weary faction of the working class. This is a cosmos that is neither punitive nor loving but simply, in Camus's phrase, "gently indifferent."
Review of Jenny Lamour
