Raquin tour
7/10
Author: melvelvit-1 from NYC suburbs
13 December 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
When a woman who has never known love or happiness has a chance at both, everyone in her orbit suffers the consequences.
Very loosely based on Emile Zola's 1867 novel of adulterous lust, murder, torment, and poetic justice, Marcel Carne's THERESE RAQUIN stayed true to the spirit of the Realist movement as a character study of a woman undone by the pressures of her environment. Therese (Simone Signoret) is so resigned to her life and it's injustices -and so misguided in her obligations to it- that her story could easily have been subtitled "The Misfortunes Of Virtue".
Long past quiet desperation, Therese has anesthetized herself to a dismal future and when her husband's new-found friend, Laurent (Raf Vallone), falls for her it's impossible for the woman to break free from her self-imposed prison. The love she feels for Laurent nearly stirs her to action but ultimately the affair only emphasizes a "No Exit" situation. Passion and premeditated murder characterized both the Zola horror novel and Luchino Visconti's James M. Cain-inspired OSSESSIONE (to which Carne's film has been erroneously compared) but here they have been eliminated and an inexorable fatalism have taken their place.
Therese's existence is self-fulfilling prophesy and her bad karma literally and figuratively drain the life out of her husband and his mother, her lover, and even her blackmailer. Bitter irony is only the natural course of events and the black cat she keeps as a pet symbolizes the bad luck its mistress brings; when Therese's lover kills her husband in a fit of anger, the attempt to cover it up only hastens their love's pre-ordained end. Adapting Emile Zola is an ambitious undertaking; the effects of heredity and surroundings are key in his works but so is the sex and savagery inherent in the human beast and it can't be cut out without emasculating the whole.
There's some passion in Vallone's Laurent before Signoret's inverted Emma Bovary begins to have an effect on him but not enough to carry a film. Director Marcel Carne took a theme or two beloved of Zola as well as Film Noir and, by having the heroine sleepwalk to her fate, created a strangely numbing portrait of dashed dreams in a bourgeoisie trap with no way out. Setting the tale in the present instead of the late 1800s when women's options were far more limited only diluted the theme of an oppressive environment's effects.
On the plus side, the world-view is very downbeat-dark and should have been a "noirist's" delight because it ended badly for everyone, including the peripheral characters -and when that happens, it's the film's philosophy and universe. Happiness here can only come at the expense of others: Therese's husband and his mother's happiness came at a cost to Therese and her shot at happiness was devastating to them. The war hero/blackmailer's dreams were extorted from both Therese and Laurent while Laurent's happiness was undercut by the one who made him happy. A truly ugly world ...and, honestly, why bother living in it?
Unhappy fates are a given and not even the ruthless who care nothing for what it costs others can never attain what they really want -or if they do get it, its not for very long. All of this is great "noir" ...but what happened in it's filmic depiction? There's some great symbolism that show the care and effort Carne et al put into this: The black cat (Therese's luckless lot) was put outside while the lady entertained Laurent in her room (the only happiness she'd ever know) but old Mme. Raquin brought it right back to her door; Therese doted on the omen which signifies an embrace of her fate.
Those weekly games of chance were a metaphor for life and contains a favorite noir theme concerning existence: "You can't win, you can't break even, you can't even quit the game". Here, if you do win, you've either cheated or are accused of it and, of course, it always comes at a price to someone else. I should have been depressed looking in on their world ...or angry ...or something as the end credits rolled -and that's just it -I wasn't moved at all. Could that have been what Carne intended all along? To be as deadened to the proceedings as Therese was to her life?
There are a few suspenseful moments, a superb supporting cast, some beautiful Lyon scenery, a touch of homo eroticism, and train scenes reminiscent of LA BETE HUMAINE/HUMAN DESIRE, but a Zola-inspired tale doesn't guarantee deliciously dark entertainment and the film is neither recommended nor to be avoided.Kino has used a pristine print for its DVD transfer and this weighs in its favor but the lack of extras doesn't.
