Le feu follet (1963) Reviews

• Outstanding study of existential anxiety

  gtzam2005-01-09

  This remarkable film traces with an almost clinical precision the last two days of a terminally desperate man. He is a former Parisian dandy, estranged from his wife due to his drinking problem and who, after having just managed to clear himself up in a clinic, finds no reason in going back to society to continue his life. His decision is already taken, but he gives himself a last chance of trying to establish a meaningful connection with the surrounding bourgeois environment by meeting his old friends and former lovers. Is it a last cry for help or a final farewell to a way of life which he finds phony, hollow and meaningless? This esoteric and highly personal journey is masterly handed by the versatile Louis Malle, who perhaps has created his masterpiece. Framing, editing and most of all acting are calibrated to perfection in order to convey a holistic sense of existential despair, the portrait of a man who feels that he has spent his life waiting for something that hasn't appeared and is not worth any longer the wait.

• A gem! This is what film-making is all about.

  paula-602001-01-04

  This is a mesmerising film about suicide as a rational way out. Ronet is wonderful in the role, sweetly sad, boyishly charming, tragically self-aware. His loving, well-meaning friends he visits on the way to the final "checking-out" are an interesting study and their inability to connect with Ronet or perceive where he's heading is poignant. For me, the best Louis Malle ever. The choice of music is great as well.

• This film is not about the surface...

  thao2009-09-05

  Malle's Lift to the Scaffold may have started the French New Wave but this feels even more like it (to me). This film is definitely not going to be every ones tea. I personally love films where the director takes his time to investigate something simple and does it by exploring everyday life. Spoilers!!! Is it depressing? Yes (and then some), but i don't think that is the point of the film. It tries to explore why someone would want to kill him/her self. What drives people to the edge? And Malle answers that quite convincingly. He manages to show us how the main character, Alain Leroy, sees the world. How happy friendly gathering look empty and pointless to Alain. He just can't connect. He is not part of this world. He has in a way died long time ago. The suicide is just an official statement of what has already happened. The scariest part of this film is that it makes you wonder whether Alain's vision of the world is correct. Is life maybe really like he sees it? I for one hope not and if it is then I don't want to know about it. Let me live in ignorance. But the film did get me thinking about my goals in life and where I was heading. Music is usually so perfect in Malle's films and this is no exception. He could not have used better music than Gnossienne No.1 by Erik Satie. Simple, like the film it self, but still endlessly sad and deep (again, like the film it self). I really liked this film. It is not for everyone, and I'm sure many would complain that nothing happened in it. And if you only look at the surface then they would be right, but this film is not about the surface.

• The Terrible Vision

  mmaras1999-12-17

  One extraordinary feature of this film is what I would call a "filter". Right from the start, the viewer knows that Alain is hurriedly (yet half-heartedly) searching for something that would give him the will to live, otherwise he will commit suicide. This extremely simple premise leads to extraordinary effects: the everyday happenings, which would seem neutral or even pleasant in any other circumstance, now fill us with disgust. Through the filter of Alain's eyes, we perceive the everyday reality as hopeless and empty of any worthwhile purpose. The author's message: you should apply that filter to your own life. But who has the guts to do it? I know I don't.

• Malle de Vie

  writers_reign2006-04-09

  Louis Malle is on record as finding this the first of his early films with which he was fully satisfied. I choose not to argue with him although I didn't find too much wrong with the others. What is indisputable here is that director and leading actor (Maurice Ronet) were in complete accord with both being entitled to pat themselves on the back. Though based on a celebrated novel Malle has embellished this with his own touches and succeeded against all the odds in making Paris empty and vacuous - as seen, of course, through the jaded eyes of the protagonist - which is quite a trick if anybody asks you. It's not so much Paris as the people in it, of course, people who are all good friends of the protagonist and none of whom can persuade him that life really is worth living. It's a fine ensemble piece dominated by a central role and if technically - in terms of when it was made - a product of the New Wave then certainly one of the more accomplished and professional of the genre. Should really be on everyone's list.