My love affair with film started as a child when I saw The Thin Man on television. It turned into a life long fascination. I've worked in the video rental industry since 1989 which has allowed me to support my movie watching habit and get paid to talk to people about film. I've managed On 15th Video, www.on15thvideo.com, since 1998. In 2000, I started as a film critic for the local television show Club Diversity. I also reviewed theater productions, guest-hosted and worked as an assistant director on the show until it's final season in 2005. In 2002, I co-hosted and researched In The Celluloid Loop, which analyzed film in depth by exploring the works of different directors and genres. In 2003 my production company, Prometheus Unbound Productions, produced Look or Listen, which aired re-creations of Old Time Radio shows. In 2004 I created The Lively Arts which currently airs as part of SCAN's Prime Time Line Up. This show alternatively focuses on film, old time radio, and the local performing arts scene. I also contribute to Halstead, an online gothic serial written round robin style, www.naboomboocomics.com/halstead/index.htm. I am very excited to be combining my passions for writing and film for SIFFBLOG.
Shot by Ghislain Cloquet (Mouchette), Classe is often described as a film noir, but it plays more like a neo-realist thriller, with most of the illegal activity--lira-snatching, carabinieri-whacking--taking place in broad daylight. Further, it's virtually devoid of music, other than a few brief, but effective bits from Georges Delerue, the composer of Jules et Jim. There's also a quintessentially French narrator, who pops up on occasion.
When a robbery goes wrong, however, several of those nearest and dearest to Davos lose their lives. It's his fault and he knows it. Until that time, it's been one chase after another: by foot, car, bike, bus, and motorboat. The pace lets up after that, although the tension remains--and intensifies.
Not until the midway point does the post-Breathless Belmondo materialize as a mysterious cat named Eric Stark, who offers to help Davos escape from Milan to Paris and to hide him until things cool down. The retired boxer seems like a nice enough fellow, but can he be trusted? With Belmondo in the role and a suspiciously generic name like "Eric Stark," who's to say?
On their illicit journey--by ambulance--Davos and Stark run into damsel in distress Liliane (Tunisian-born Sandra Milo, 8 1/2) and offer to take her with them to France. Like Davos, she's not sure whether she can trust Stark, but she doesn't have anywhere else to turn. Plus, the attraction is instant--and mutual.
Sautet continues to introduce new characters until the end. It's a risky move, but one that pays dividends, especially with a third-act walk-on from a duplicious fence's sullen daughter, who pouts in a most hilarious fashion (the bit with the cat and the fish is priceless). She may not be essential, but Ms. Insolent's saucy turn helps to elevate Classe from good to great.
Not long afterwards, Classes Tous Risques is over. The end, when it comes, is surprisingly sudden. Filmmaker and historian Bertrand Tavernier, who knows his way around a crime film, has described it as "abrupt, unsentimental and poignant." There's a happy ending for one man, a less-happy one for the other. You could say Sautet hedges his bets as tragedy mingles with fortune. Somehow, he pulls it off. The resulting thriller may not surpass Melville for cool, but rivals him in the hood-with-heart department.
Two weeks ago, while prying open an Amazon package, my right middle finger contracted and wouldn't reopen. Fortunately, I live two blocks from Virginia Mason where they took a couple of x-rays and diagnosed me as having had a dislocation. They shot the finger full of anesthetic, pried it open and splinted it up. A week later I visited an orthopedist who informed me that the finger hadn't been dislocated at all and that the splint had been wholly unecessary. Instead, I had developed a bit of tendonitis which had lead to something called 'trigger finger.' They injected the finger with cortisone and said it would take effect within a few days.
Oh, and that package. It contained a DVD of Downtown 81, a film I had been curious to see since seeing TV Party at the Northwest Film Forum. For those of you who don't know, it was a film directed by Glenn O'Brien starring Jean-Michel Basquiat. It was a lot of fun to watch with O'Brien's commentary and, as I had lived in New York during that period, it brought back some memories [most notably, just how much parts of the East Village resembled Beirut back then].
Anyway, I have now regained a good deal of motion in that finger, but it will be months before it goes back to being normal, and I would like to think of it as the moment when I gave my all [or at least my finger] for film.
Image from GQ (Edo Bertoglio / Courtesy of Metrograph Pictures).
Coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival and year-round art house programming in the Pacific Northwest.
Kathy Fennessy is former president of Seattle Film Critics Society, a Northwest Film Forum board member, and a Tomatometer-approved critic. She writes or has written for Amazon, Minneapolis's City Pages, Resonance, Rock and Roll Globe, Seattle Sound, and The Stranger.
