Brilliant Genre Film that Fights Conventions

 

Author: Stroheim-3 from Boston, MA

8 September 1999

I just watched Bob le flambeur for a class on the French New Wave. The film is brilliant. The title character is a complicated former gangster who has mellowed out since spending time in prison. He reminds me a great deal of Burt Lancaster's character in Atlantic City. He is an old-timer in a world that has moved on.

 

Bob is a gambler (hence the title of the film) that never wins. He has a relatively big win at the races but then blows it all in a casino. He seems destined to be a loser. The fact that he always loses may have some bearing on why he refuses the sexual advances of the young and beautiful Ana. Instead of bringing her into his web of misfortune, he "gives" her to his Polo (the son-figure). Nevertheless, the relationship between Bob and Ana is frought with sexual tension.

 

Half way through the film, Bob loses all of his money and decides to put a crew together to rob the casino of 800 million francs (this reminded my a lot of Kubrick's The Killing). What follows is Bob's retreat into his original gangster form. At one point, he slaps Ana across the face - something that he (at the beginning of the film) would not have ever done. In addition the second half of the film is filled with sequences of the gang "training" to rob the place. Some of these are extremely hypnotic such as the lock-picker opening a copy of the casino's safe.