Reviews

First of all, let me state that I was intrigued by the premise. I've always been a fan of time-travel, whether it be in movies, TV shows or other. I'm not going to rant about errors vis-a-vis the time-travel blah blah blah, or the logistics of it. After all, it's fantasy, and should be accepted as such.

So the writers/executives, whoever it was, came up with this great idea for a show. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. Someone, in all their wisdom, decides that it must go on for 16 x 1- hour episodes. The problem is that, I get the feeling this decision was made long before the knowledge or guarantee, if you like, that the show actually needed those 16 episodes. So the writers are left with the task of prolonging this fantastic idea to the point where it becomes boring/frustrating/annoying. I can forgive them for the time travel errors, cause that's just fantasy, but the moronic characters and dialogue, this I cannot. I'm also amazed by the technical abilities of mobile phones in South-Korea, apparently, they can pick up dialogue with crisp quality from at least 20 yards away when shooting video.

I wonder if writers will ever stray from the 'cliche' of ending an episode on a cliff-hanger, in the vain hope that viewers will just have to watch the next installment. I know, and this may sound radical, but why don't they just concentrate on writing a good script, draw in the viewers, make them sit on the edge of their seat? Not bore them for 55 minutes then throw a spanner in the works in the final 5 minutes like some kind of bait.

This could have been fantastic as, let's say, 4 x 1-hour episodes. I'm guessing at this point, because I reached episode 7 and concluded that 2 x 1-hour shows would have sufficed up til now. I won't be watching anymore, I really tried to give it a fair shot. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. I've watched other Korean shows (My girlfriend is a gumiho , My love from the star , Master's sun, oh my Venus etc) and found them all to be very enjoyable, or at least, made me watch til the end. As for this festering refuse, I will never know how it ends, and it's something that doesn't bother me at all, I'm just upset that it's taken me 7 episodes to realise that I was wasting my time.

I watched this classic again last night , and while I imagine most people have seen it already, I would urge anyone who hasn't to watch it and appreciate it for what it is , a true masterpiece.

Based loosely on the novel "She who was no more" by Boileau- Narcejac , director Clouzot bought the rights to the novel , beating Alfred Hitchcock to it by a matter of hours , so the story goes. Of course , the story goes that they also wrote "D'entre les morts" specifically for Hitchcock , who filmed it as Vertigo. It is true that many aficionados believe that Hitch was strongly influenced and inspired by Diabolique , not least when it came to Psycho. But what the master of suspense achieved with razor-sharp edits and violins , Clouzot managed it without any fancy cutting and hardly any music. Apart from the opening score ( which includes a creepy kids chorus and shows how effective that can be ) , and a little bit of music at the end , there is hardly any music to speak of. What we are given instead , is an account of a diabolical scheme with clinical precision , a step by step storytelling with acting that make it seem real...and that's what draws you in. And this is before the tension even begins !!

Perhaps it's fair to make a little comparison . The two main actresses , not those scantily clad scream queens of American or Italian horror , just a bashful Brazilian beauty and frosty 'femme francaise' ( though I must admit at this point, that I was rather surprised at how 'see-through' Chritina's night-gown is at the end of the movie). Special mention for how seriously cool Simone Signoret looks when she first appears on the screen wearing those fabulous sunglasses. She goes on to smoke Gauloises cigarettes and drink whiskey.. Not your usual Hollywood fare.

The build-up in the tension/suspense is the work of genius , culminating in a climax which will send shivers down your spine. Remember , this was made in 1955 , one must take into account how 'so far ahead of its time' this film really was.

I don't want to give too much away , I would hate to spoil it for anyone who has yet to see it. Instead , I'm going to finish off with a few bits of trivia regarding this film :

The director , who shot on closed sets , away from all outsiders , was supposedly so sadistic that if any actor had to swallow poison in one of his films, he made them take a non-lethal dose of the real thing.

Paul Meurisse , who plays the husband , had to spend an entire day in a cold bath-tub in a full suit. He also had to keep ice cubes in his mouth while filming the outdoor scenes in the dead of winter to avoid forming steam with his breath.

It is rumoured that the director actually gave Chritina fish that was 'off' in order to get a realistic reaction when she ate it.

Knowing all of this, it's easy to see why Simone Signoret was constantly in dispute with the director throughout the making of the movie , for various reasons , and never spoke to him again once production had wrapped.

No sign of the Louvres, the Champs-Elysees , the Eifel tower , the 'bateau-mouche' on the Seine , the Arc de Triomphe or any of the usual sights that one would normally associate with the city of romance in this movie. The one exception is perhaps a blurry view of Sacre- coeur in the background , albeit very briefly.

Instead , we're treated with a perhaps over-realistic version of this beloved city , with an extremely 'bent' policeman (Noiret) who is given the clean country boy (Lhermitte) as a new partner. The comedy stems from Lhermitte's transformation from an " Elliot Ness" type of honesty , to eventually become more dishonest than Noiret himself.

Incidentally , the term 'ripoux' stems from a french type of slang , whereby the syllables in a word are phonetically reversed , so in this instance , ripoux = pouris , which means 'rotten' or 'garbage' .

A great little movie which spawned 2 sequels ( of inferior quality , but let's be honest, sequels usually are ).