User Reviews

Le Combat dans l'île is a political film about a right-wing reactionary, the racist Clément played by Jean-Louis Trintignant; his childhood friend Paul (Henri Serre), left-wing printer; and love interest Anne (Romy Schneider).

Clément and Anne are in a rut, she an ex-actress, now a kept woman, he a son of a wealthy industrialist, very serious and eager to kill lefty politicians. She likes to pass herself around, wedding ring or no, he treats her as if she were personal property, they are deserving of one another.

Anne's slatternly behaviour appears to be foreplay for unhealthy sex as Clément physically abuses her and she submits. Trintignant is not really up to the part, not in the mindset of the character, but Schneider really wows. You can almost sense cinematographer Lhomme's enthusiasm as he follows her around as she pelts the camera with daisies, under her spell. That is the meat of the movie, images of Romy Schneider, for more after this fashion see her in L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot, a documentary of footage from an extremely ambitious Clouzot production that didn't get off the ground assembled recently by Serge Bromberg. L'enfer is the concept of fascination with Romy Schneider taken to ruinous extremes.

These early scenes are accompanied by an ominous and weary soundtrack, which was very noirish. I would have been perfectly content for the movie to continue in this manner and end badly, but the scriptwriters went for the political angle, and turned this into a bildungsroman of sorts. That is to say the movie becomes about Anne's growth and she redeems herself under the wing of Paul.

This second half of the movie is dissatisfying, firstly in that it becomes propagandish, Clément is shown as being part of a shady international network of fascists holding old grudges, whereas of course Paul lives the simple life. Clément's communist equivalents were just as militant and obscure, but the movie doesn't show this. The element of personal growth here is also not very satisfying, generally in the bildungsroman form you get personal growth being achieved only by painstaking efforts, Anne here is doing little more than bedhopping and having a nice stay in the country on Paul's tab.

The action sequence at the end of the film (which the title refers to) is handled with an absolute minimum of suspense and is bizarrely anticlimactic, even it's mere existence didn't seem in keeping with the rest of the film, as if director and scriptwriter couldn't get straight what type of story they were telling.

As Cavalier's debut not despicable picture mixing political issues and dramatic tragic drama, in a slow pace by the way, the story should be concise, offer more practicality instead some useful boring sequences, though don't expect see an eloquent Romy Schneider, she plays Anne a disturbed girl, going to nowhere, Trintignant plays Clement a rich son of great French industrialist who makes part of a right-wind terrorist cell, cover up by Hunting private club leading by a veteran terrorist Serge (Pierre Asso) they target are left-wing politicians and reds, they first target is a famous politician that end up in a flop, Clement is betrayed by Serge, meanwhile he and Anne hidden at Paul's house, (Henri Serre) actually a blood brothers when they were teenagers, Clement decides chase Serge to kill him, Anne stays there for a while, although both in absolute aloneness will getting closing each other, Clement finds Serge in a faraway Argentina, got his revenge and get back, now faces the unexpected truth, Anne is pregnancy of Paul, spurned Clement demands a duel at Island at river Senne, according Clement Paul broken the pact made on their childhood, dispersive the picture seems lost the central point often, overall a decent presentation!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25

In a France frightened by the rise of the far right a couple of weeks ago ,"le combat dans l'ile" seen today has a contemporary feel.The hero,Clément,played with talent by a deadpan Jean-Louis Trintignant,is a rich young man,who severs all links with his family ,except his wife Anne (Romy Schneider)and becomes part of an extremist group,which recalls the O.A.S..Their short-sighted philosophy considers that Occident is in jeopardy because of the socialists and the commies and they multiply the assassination attempts.Betrayed by his instructor,Serge takes refuge in his old friend Paul's house (Henri Serre),a socialist and a pacifist.

Shot in black and white ,with beautiful forest landscapes,this is an overlooked movie.Overshadowed by the new wave movies that were released by the dozen at the time,it could not appeal to the "conventional" audience either.Its slow pace,its rather risqué subject may have repelled most of the people.But it's about time to restore it to public favor.The story may be a fight between two men for a woman;but it is also the clash between two ideologies.

It proves that Romy Schneider was a great actress well before her heyday in the seventies:here,she definitively relinquishes her former insipid roles,the likes of Sissi to a modern woman.Henri Serre,who was Jim in Truffaut's "jules and Jim" gives a heartfelt and sensitive performance.Too bad he fell into oblivion soon after it.

Alain Cavalier started strongly with "le combat dans l'île" ,continued in the same vein with "l'insoumis" (1964)(starring Alain Delon and Léa Massari),but was disappointing afterward.Only "un étrange voyage" (1980) and "le plein de super"(1975)

are interesting.But "Therèse" redeemed him !

As a winter of discontent ends in Paris, militaristic Jean-Louis Trintignant (as Clement Lesser) plans to assassinate a unionist politician. When his clandestine "hunting club" fails to achieve success, Mr. Trintignant must hide from authorities. He and alluring wife Romy Schneider (as Anne) take refuge with Trintignant's childhood chum Henri Serre (as Paul). Trintignant leaves to square things with former cohort Pierre Asso (as Serge) while Ms. Schneider resumes her (stage) acting career. Absent her husband, Schneider falls into Mr. Serre's bed. Then, Trintignant returns and wants to get combative...

This was the first feature from director Alain Cavalier, here assisted by Louis Malle. The leading men are meant to represent two extreme sides of the political aisle - commonly called right-wing (tending toward fascism in the extreme) and left-wing (tending toward communism in the extreme). Unfortunately, the film does not relay much of the men's friendship; we do not care that they become rivals. Most interesting is the relationship between Trintignant and Schneider, which may border (at least) on sadomasochism. There is good black-and-white photography by Pierre Lhomme, especially the location scenes.

****** Le combat dans l'ile (8/17/62) Alain Cavalier ~ Romy Schneider, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Henri Serre, Pierre Asso

When the children of rich parents make a revolution: Jean-Louis Trintignant and Henri Serre fight for Romy Schneider

Alain Cavalier made a strangely impressive film at the beginning of the 1960s. Anne (GOLDEN GLOBE candidate Romy Schneider) and Clement (FELIX prize winner Jean-Louis Trintignant) are young married, she is a former actress and he is the son of a rich company owner. But Clement doesn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps, preferring to join Serge's (Pierre Asso) right-wing extremist group. Clement will soon carry out his first assassination attempt on an overly left-wing trade union leader. The shot is successful, but Serge has badly betrayed him. Together with Anne, Clement stays with a friend from the Algerian war. This Paul (Henri Serre, known from "Jules and Jim") is in many ways the exact opposite of Clement: newly widowed, owner of a small printing company that trains three apprentices. As Clement chases after the fugitive Serge to South America to finally judge him, Anne and Paul grow closer and closer. When Clement returns after Serge's execution has been completed, only one last confrontation with his rival Paul remains: the fight on the island...

As if Oscar nominee Jean Paul Rappeneau ("Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Hussar on the Roof" as director) was already anticipating the contrasts of the 1968 era in his script, the conflict between love of peace and radical resistance is fought out here. Of course it's also about Romy, but the argument is much deeper. Both men are familiar with weapons through their service in Algeria, both are dependent on a female hand in the household, so they are still very much caught up in the traditional life of a man. But they made different decisions based on this initial situation. And that makes this film - despite an annoying narrator's voice - still an interesting contemporary document. For Romy Schneider, the film was the breakthrough in French cinema, even though it flopped at the box office. But a film with her can't be bad at all. One of the members of the right-wing terrorist group is played by director Jean Pierre Melville ("Le Samourai").

'New Wave, 'Neo-Noir', 'political thriller' or 'romantic melodrama'? Whatever label one choses to attach to this film it represents a highly assured directorial debut by Alain Cavalier. By all accounts it was made 'under the supervision' of Louis Malle although how much influence he exerted and to what extent he contributed is impossible to establish. Cavalier's next film, the brilliant 'L'Insoumi', used as a backdrop the Algerian War of Independence. In the film under review this conflict is neither mentioned nor alluded to but the leading character Clement belongs to an extremist right-wing organisation which one assumes is a reference to the OAS that was formed just one year earlier in an attempt to foil Algerian self-determination. After having failed in an attempt to bump off a left-wing politician Clement realises he has been betrayed and is nominated by other members of his group to track the traitor to South America and kill him. His wife Anne, with whom he has a volatile and rather violent relationship, tells him that if he goes she never wishes to see him again. In his absence she falls in love with and is pregnant by Paul, a lifelong friend of Clement. When Clement returns and hears the news he challenges Paul to a duel........ This was a good phase for Henri Serre who plays Paul as 'Jules et Jim' was released the previous year. He had a minor role in Malle's 'Le Feu Follet' the following year but it is hard to find any film thereafter as effective which is a pity. Jean-Louis Trintignant, one of France's greatest living actors, brings his own air of mystery and unpredictability to the part of Clement. It is not too fanciful I am sure to connect this role with that of the fascist Marcello in Bertolucci's 'Il Conformista' eight years later. The film really belongs to Romy Schneider as Anne. At first she appears to be the passive wife and little more than the obligatory 'love interest' but her character develops strongly and becomes the driving force. Her qualities as an actress are manifold and of course the camera absolutely adores her. The next few years provided nothing comparable but her career was revitalised by 'Les Choses de ma Vie' for Claude Sautet. Excellent script by Cavalier and Jean-Paul Rappeneau with gorgeous, grainy cinematography by the masterful Pierre L'Homme. Cavalier maintains a 'lento' rhythm throughout which allows the characters to breathe whilst never allowing the momentum to slacken. If you liked this, you will love 'L'Insoumi'.

The long goodbye that we are taking from Jean-Louis Trintignant gave us the opportunity to see some of his most famous films but also a few lesser known ones. The latter category includes 'Le Combat dans l'île', the feature film debut of Alain Cavalier, today a somewhat forgotten film director who has several very interesting films in his filmography, including this one. Cavalier had been the assistant of Louis Malle, who even appears on some posters as the film's 'supervisor'. It is difficult to guess today what his direct influence was, but 'Le Combat dans l'île' can also be seen as an episode in the evolution of the New Wave film-makers. Trintignant plays a very different role here than the one of the positive lover who would become a favorite typology in his successful films a few years later. The rich kid who becomes a terrorist, the jealous and possessive husband who resorts to violence when he suspects that he has been betrayed, the angelic figure with the magnetism we know diverted in evil directions - this is a different but remarkable role in my opinion. But it is not at all the only reason why this film, made 60 years ago, still manages to captivate the attention of viewers.

'Le Combat dans l'île' brings to the screen an interesting combination of various genres. The relationship between the dandy who became a terrorist and his beautiful wife who abandoned her career as a theater actress in favor of a routine marriage contains an existentialist spleen also present in the films of the New Wave or Antonioni. The counterpoint is provided by the political thriller plot filmed in film noir style, in black and white, at a time in the history of cinema when the costs and percentages of the distribution between color and black and white were approximately equal, thus the choice was mainly aesthetic. Pierre Lhomme's excellent cinematography creates a much more expressive visual atmosphere than what off-screen voice can achieve. This is, by the way, one of the few tools in the arsenal of the New Wave that I don't really like, and I think watching the movie without the commentary could be an interesting exercise. Not much would be lost in my opinion.

'Le Combat dans l'île' is also a film that relies on its wonderful actors. For Romy Schneider and Jean-Louis Trintignant that was the first close collaboration between two stars (and 'sex symbols') that will make together three more films in the next 18 years. As this is also a love triangle story, the third side is represented by Henri Serre, whose personality on the screen almost eclipses the two stars. An interesting detail, the actor also acted in Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim' at that time, probably the pinnacle of his career. 1962 was a year of glory for Henri Serre. The narrative construction and the gradation towards an end that can be considered a reverence for the old good Hollywood adds to the force of attraction of the film. Recommended watching.

This first feature film directed by Alain Cavalier is an atmospheric brooder. The plot is not entirely convincing, but the main motivations for making the film seem to have been to explore political extremism, social paranoia, and mood for its own sake. The film was made in the immediate aftermath of the Coup d'Alger of April, 1961, namely the rebellion against de Gaulle's Government headed by General Raoul Salan, the French military chief in Algeria, and his three co-conspirators. The plan was to have included a coup in Paris itself, but that did not come off. France was seriously spooked by this right-wing conspiracy which nearly succeeded. So this film is drenched in the atmosphere of paranoia prevalent at that moment in French society. France has always had its terrorists of all kinds, and the right wing ones have been as sinister as those of the far left. In this film, we see a small group of elegant, rich young bourgeois men who have decided to save their country from communism. At least that's what they think. And like all political extremists, the means always justify the end, so they are free to commit any crime, murder being their favourite. They meet twice a month for weapons and combat training in the countryside, gleefully firing their machine guns at symbolic enemies, with crazed grins on their faces. One of these young men is played by the youthful Jean-Louis Trintignant, a grim, humourless fanatic who beats up his wife. The conspirators at one point sing a Petainist song, and are clearly survivors of the Vichy mentality, only even more extreme. When Trintignant goes to South America, he boasts of having met exiled Germans who were kind to him (get it?) and says that as he moved from city to city, starting in Buenos Aires, he was always fed and given money and new passports by the endless network of sympathisers there. So we get the picture. Trintignant is married to Romy Schneider, who gives a marvellously rounded and inspired performance as a woman who clings to her persecutor and keeps returning to be beaten up again. But eventually she snaps when a baby's life is at stake rather than just her own. When Schneider realizes that her husband has attempted to assassinate a member of the National Assembly (or Senate, it's not clear which) by firing a bazooka at his flat from a rooftop, she does not desert him, a typical behaviour of the willingly enslaved masochistic woman. Despite her obvious psychological disturbance, Schneider is always laughing and exceedingly carefree in her manner, flirting and enjoying herself, so that the performance is really far from one-dimensional. Trintignant's best friend from his youth is a left-wing pacifist printer, played with convincing languor by Henry Serre. When Trintignant and Schneider seek shelter with him at a beautiful old mill deep in the countryside, the psychological complexities multiply. Serre and Schneider eventually become an item while Trintignant is off killing someone. This does not go down well with Trintignant, who simply cannot see the funny side, so he challenges Serre to a duel. Serre thinks this is some kind of joke, but even by now Serre has failed to realize that Trintignant does not joke. Eventually this leads to a life and death struggle on a small river island (a holm), which is what gives this film its original French title, LE COMBAT DANS L'ILE, which means THE FIGHT ON THE ISLAND, though the English language title is FIRE AND ICE, whatever that means. Naturally I cannot say what happens at the end. A sombre and intense mood is sustained throughout this film, so it is really more of a 'mood piece' than a story. But it is a mood piece which evokes a moment in time in France and gives us an insight into the fears which haunted people then. Many of the interiors of buildings in Paris glimpsed in this film are seen to be shabby, still not fixed up since the German Occupation. Indeed, the ghost of the Nazi presence seems still to be there, as the spawn of the Nazis go about their evil work. And we are left wondering about women like the character played by Schneider: what makes them tick? Or is their ticking really that of a time-bomb of self-destruction? This film poses questions of a psychological, moral, and political nature which are uncomfortable and will probably never be resolved as long as there are humans and human societies. There is always a dark side, and here we see some of it up close.

At the beginning we are not really sure what is going on although we are sure that the cinematography of Pierre Lhomme is wonderful and the dialogue and directing by Alain Cavalier is great. Starting in a car with Jean-Louis Trintignant one of his colleagues and Romy Schneider we imagine that there is something going on with the men. It is a small space but we think that something terrible is going on and that she is a little drunk and tries to work it out, the same as us. Just in those little moments and the three together it is sparkling. Is this a noir or maybe some Nouvelle Vague? Further on we find that maybe these are right-wing terrorists and Trintignant in the middle of it and later on it is Henri Serre his old childhood friend but a pacifist. At the same time Schneider is wonderful and jolly and sad, in love and out and on as Trintignant can be rather nasty. This is like a thriller and the narrator will tell us about the political turmoil of the 60s and there will be violence but then there will even be some sort of duel and eventually some romance.

The only weak point of the casting is Romy Schneider who is slightly over-acting. Beautiful B&W camera work and music. Directing work is directly influenced by Robert Bresson (LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE ; UN CONDAMNE A MORT S'EST ECHAPPÉ) & Louis Malle (ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD ; LE FEU FOLLET) : distant, "fire under the ice" style, sharp, precise, contained. The story is quite intelligent (an right-wing anti-communist idealist militant betrayed by his chief after a political assassination attempt + love story in which Romy Schneider is torn apart between him and his left-wing childhood friend : they will "fight in the island" to death, using Walther P-38 pistols) and time treatment managed by the editing work is superior art. One of the best movies made in France by the 1960's but it is necessary, when screening it, to not miss one sequence, even a short one, in order to be able to enjoy the subtle atmosphere construction. To be fully understood, this movie requires you to be aware of the political situation of France at that time.

1961) Le Combat dans l'île/ Fire And Ice (In French with English subtitles) THRILLER

Co-written and directed by Alain Cavalier and Louis Malle credited as executive producer. Made in the same tone as the 1960 film called "Breathless" directed by Jean Luc Godard, which centers on Anne's (Romy Schneider) involvement with a jealous husband Clément (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who does not quite know what he does. On one of those days when the cleaning lady was there uncovers something hidden and wrapped in the apartment's closet. After Anne waits for her husband to come home after unwrapping it, it soon turns out that it happens to be a bazooka, who he was going to return it. And after one of Clement's jealous rages in a jazzy nightclub just because she wanted to dance with some old friends, she then leaves him. So instead of returning the bazooka, he then decides to use it and as he happens to be one of few underground French resistance fighters who's against the act of "communism". After a botched job, he then hides out by seeking for a friend's old resort which happens to be an inn that is somewhat isolated. Ann obviously does not like what he is doing and makes him chose. And she builds a rapport with his best friend and law abiding Paul, which is why the English title is called "Fire And Ice". Made during the Vietnam war which part of the reason for the invasion was because the American gov't didn't want to see Vietnam to become a Communist state, this film makes a radical idea into a involving one, much more so than Godard's "Breathless", since the only thing we see the characters do most of the time are frolicking with one another which this film doesn't do a lot of.

Behind the political message, a film defined by cinematography and admirable acting of Henri Serre, Romy Schneider and Jean Louis Trintignian. And, sure, the mark of Louis Malle.

A film about nuances of love and great portrait of a woman self definition. A film about nuances of revenge, to, about friendship and about justice.

Romy Scheider just shining under camera eye and the fight scenes on the isle are just impressive detail by detail.

The basic gift - the feeling after its end , than it represents a large mirror.