HEAD AGAINST THE WALL (La Tete Contre Les Murs)Franju’s first feature film, unlike his better known Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without A Face, 1. It is, however, the stuff of nightmares. Francois is neither mad nor particularly dangerous, but certainly foolhardy in thinking he can defy authority figures like his lawyer father and the psychiatrist Dr. Like most of us, Francois takes his freedom for granted, until it is taken away from him. Only then does he discover how defenceless the individual can be when pitted against the system and those charged with the task of keeping it in place. But who exactly is being protected and from what? The visiting Dr. Emery has a more humanitarian approach. Unlike Varmont, he believes in the possibility of rehabilitation. In his institution he provides a far more inviting environment for his patients, reasoning that a more sympathetic approach is more likely to heal the mentally disturbed. Heurtevent (a fine performance from Charles Aznavour) pleads with Emery to take him on as a patient. But the doctor regretfully doesn’t have the space – a circumstance that will have tragic consequences later. Under the circumstances it is no wonder that the desperate take the only course left open to them, but there are more than just outer walls to surmount if they are to find the peace they long for. Ultimately what makes the film so extraordinarily memorable is not the compassionate message, compelling though it may be, but the otherworldly atmosphere conjured up by Franju in a succession of haunting images: the train that chugs through the forest, the Rappaccini- like greenhouse, the escape across burning stubble fields, the dream- like gambling den whose inhabitants seem just as stony and absent, if not more so, than the statue- like patients at the hospital who suddenly animate and come to life when they join hands and march in a circle. This is a world where darkness is always encroaching, where even lovers talk in sombre whispers, and where death is always close at hand. It’s there in the cemetery scene, in the epileptic’s gruesome suicide, in the odd zombie- like manner of the players in the gambling den, in the feeling – as Francois is being pulled down the stairs of his lover’s apartment – of being buried alive.
On cherche autant les vrais fous que Ce n. Il est capable de mener une. Voir la suite Partager Mes Listes Vous ne pouvez pas ajouter ce produit Vous cherchez le streaming du film La t? Sur Liberty Land nous mettons Masters of Cinema DVD release of Le T. Bonuses include the film's original theatrical trailer (see below), as well as interviews with actors Mocky and Aznavour conducted in.
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