Panic
A murder
PostED ON 12.10.2015 AT 10:57AM
The body of a lovesick spinster is discovered in the wasteland of a small Parisian suburb. A murder. At the same time, a beautiful and sexy girl takes a room at a local boarding hotel. A little wheedling thug and an intelligent, sarcastic, ugly man orbit around her. There would be a thousand ways to summarize Panic, the splendid and faithful film adaptation of the novel by Georges Simenon: The Engagement.
A thousand ways because the film adopts the viewpoint of Jean Renoir: The problem in this world is that everyone has his reasons. His reasons to live, to find happiness at any price….Therefore, Renoir tried to reconcile humanity through some perpetual understanding of the other, with a sense of warmth too, and a sense of lightness, nevertheless deep, to remain unified. Julien Duvivier applies Renoir's philosophy, but sifts it through a black sieve, with the sordid Simenon as the final result. Panic, then, puts the characters into a state of madness and total unconsciousness, all unable to retain all the blackest and weakest aspects of their personalities. With remarkable and fascinating detail, Duvivier builds a story where love buckles under the weight of suspicion, stupidity, pitiful sentimentality, preconceived notions of public opinion, obvious villainy (all the more devious because of its secrecy) and the humiliation that intelligent individuals inflict on others, out of pure contempt.
These elements, admirably scattered throughout Panic, make it one of Duvivier's greatest films, from the obvious to the surprising. Obvious: the small vile scoundrel camped by an actor with the strange and wonderfully twisted face, Paul Bernard. Still obvious: the absolute non-resistance of the heroin, Viviane Romane, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open and her body bent under loving desire, facing a bastard incapable of emotion. Surprising: in the middle of this complete failure of a couple is a man who loves rare meat and announces the fact loud and clear. This man is the key to the film, its greatest mystery.
Virginie Apiou
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Panic by Julien Duvivier , France , 1946
