Paris Crime Wave

I really started getting into classic French movies in 2007, shortly after subscribing to Netflix. Of course, the first thing one learns about classic French films is that- unlike classic Hollywood movies- French movies do not have happy endings- which I always find refreshing. Watching Rififi again recently (I own it) also reminds me how much American films from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s influenced French cinema, especially American gangster movies, film noir, and Westerns. Like cowboys or samurai, the Parisian gangsters in Rififi operate outside the law and live by their own code (the black and white film only adds to the starkness and symbolism of the proceedings) but the movie does not glamorize criminal behavior and only uses it to study and say something about human behavior.

Most of the gangsters in Rififi are motivated by want of money, and even in their fatalistic, criminal underworld there are rules and a hierarchy: informers, junkies, and child abductors are the lowest of the low. Enter Tony (Jean Servais), a tough guy’s tough guy, recently released from five years imprisonment for jewel theft (and after getting pinched he did the right thing- he did not rat out his partner). Tony doesn’t know what he wants to do with his newfound freedom and when he finally agrees to help three other gangsters pull off a daring jewel heist, we’re not sure what Tony’s motivation is for participating; and that- along with the gritty Paris in winter street scenes shot in almost documentary style- is what makes the movie so interesting. Tony represents man’s search for meaning in a cold and broken world.

By the end of the film- which culminates in a speeding, suspenseful drive through the streets of Paris- Tony has found something to live- and die- for and that realization puts all the film’s previous action in a new light for both Tony and the audience. Directed by blacklisted American filmmaker Jules Dassin (who makes a brilliant cameo as the safecracker), Rififi is a treat to revisit annually- especially for fans of French movies, Existentialism, and film noir. While it predates the start of the French New Wave by a few years, the film is no less influential and for every gangster movie cliché it celebrates, Rififi also gifts something fresh, exciting, and unexpected to cinema- and life- even after 65 years. Grade: A-