January 26, 2017
Damned, The -
France, 1947
There have been many movies dealing post-World War II
Europe. Some of these have been court room dramas, ones in which one or a
number of individuals from the Axis Powers are put on trial for their suspected
activities during the war; others look at the world that greeted the survivors of
the war, one replete with shattered, bombed out buildings, displaced families,
and scarred psyches. Rene Clement’s The
Damned has elements of both of these types, for it includes people on the
run from justice and has as its lead character a man who returns home after the
war and attempts to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. It is also the
first of these films that I would describe as a thriller.
The film’s central character is a young French doctor named
Guilbert (Henri Vidal), and in the film’s opening credits, it is his hands we
see writing madly in a journal at a candlelit desk that sits just below an
image of the swastika. Soon the film flashes forward, and we see Guilbert
returning to his home in Royan, France, one person a line of evacuees that stretches
far and wide. In a touching moment, we watch as he finds his old harmonica, and
we realize that in times like these the memories that come back to us when we
are reunited with cherished possessions can be bittersweet. I though the film
would settle here for a bit. Instead it flashes back and transports viewers to
a very different place. There we watch as a submarine slowly fills up with
passengers, some of them Nazi sympathizers from France, some Italians, a few
higher ranking German officers, and their henchmen, as well as civilians whom
we assume must have some kind of connection to the Third Reich. Soon they set
sail for South America. What exactly they plan to do there is anyone’s guess.
As with many submarines during wartime, there is soon a
skirmish, and a blast causes one of the women on board to fall into a coma as a
result of head trauma. She needs a doctor. As fate would have it, they are
sailing near enough to Royan to make an emergency stop. The plan: to kidnap a
doctor. One guess which doctor that turns out to be. From there, it’s a fight
to say alive, with Guilbert trying to stay one step ahead of a German officer
named Forster (Jo Dest) who intends to kill him when his services are no longer
required. Guilbert’s only hope then is to extend his usefulness until an
opportunity to escape presents itself.
Given this set up, I was sure that the film would focus
almost exclusively on Guilbert, yet I was pleasantly surprised when it began
focusing on other characters and fully fleshing them out. For example, a German
general named Andreas Von Halbetatadt could easily have been a one-dimensional character, one
rotten to the core with no redeeming values. However, here he is presented as a
military man whose devotion to the Nazi cause - and to the married woman he is
having a fling with – may not be as strong as it seems at first. In this way,
he is the opposite of Forster. His loyalty never wavers, and as the film
progresses, it leads him down an increasingly violent and murderous path. His
actions are truly frightening, and it reminded me of the maddening fact that
many German commanders continued fighting even after defeat was inevitable.
Behind the camera, Clement works hard to create a claustrophobic
feel. In one amazing scene, he appears to pick up his camera and walks backward
as Guilbert is entering the sub for the first time, and as he walks both he and
viewers are made aware of just how perilous his situation is. There’s no place
to hide and no place to run. If someone wants him dead, it won’t be hard to
make it happen. I also admired the way the film defies convention. In a more
standard film, Guilbert would morph into a man of action and play people
against each other before ultimately having them right where he wants them. For
the most part, Clement avoids this trap. Guilbert doesn’t become one of those
action movie types. In fact, the strategies he employs practically ensures that
he is much more likely to stay out of fisticuffs than he is to engage in Bond-like
maneuvers and direct confrontations.
It should be apparent by now that I enjoyed The Damned quite a lot. The film is
tense and suspenseful and includes a number of twists and turns that I honestly
did not see coming. I also admired the way what transpires onscreen is so
deeply connected to 1945 and its many explosive changes. In a scene toward the
middle of the film, word gets out that Hitler is dead, and it is utterly
fascinating to observe the impact this news has on the occupants of the
submarine. Just what must it have been like to learn that everything they
believed in was crumbling?
As much as I enjoyed the film, it would have worked much
more had one key change been made. At various points in the film, the film is
narrated by Guilbert, and much of what he tells us is either unnecessary or
distracting. Even worse, it is unclear what the narration actually is. At times
it seems as if he is relating his story from the heavens as he watches a reenactment
of it; at other times, he talks about events that seem utterly fascinating, but
far too many of these are presented simply as thoughts in Guilbert’s head. We
do not see them occur, and as such, they don’t resonate very much. Even more
egregious is the inconsistency with which the narration is used. For long
stretches of the film, the narrator simply disappears. In a way, this seems
logical, as Guilbert is far from the events depicted in some scenes, but this
just begs the question: How can we see it if the narrator of the film is not
present and there is no scene in which the event is related within earshot of
him? And while we’re on the subject, just how does he know, which he claims to
do, what characters are thinking?
Despite this quibble, The
Damned remains a powerful, thrilling film that is much more original than
many of the more well-known films in its genre. It is also one of those rare
examples of a film that grows in quality and intrigue as it goes along. I was captivated
by these characters, shocked by some of their actions, and enthralled by the
chaos of it all. The film deserves to be discovered and appreciated as the
wonder that it is. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
3 and a half stars
*The Damned is in
French, German, and Italian with English subtitles.
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