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Purple Noon More at IMDbPro »Plein soleil (original title)

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"Purple Noon" or "Kizgin Gunes" as we title it in Turkey..., 22 December 2005

Author: buktel from Turkey

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I watched "The Purple Noon" with the Turkish title "Kizgin Günes" which means "The Scorching Sun" at cinema Elhamra in Izmir when I was 12 or so. (My birth date is 1950.) It was the first time when I saw the name and the image of Alain Delon on a movie poster. On the poster Delon was seen naked on the upper part of his body, directing a yacht's steering wheel. Years later I would read Highsmith's "Talented Mr. Ripley" and realize that, the screenplay of the movie had some fortunate differences from the book.

One of these differences was the interesting dialog between Delon and Ronet on the latter's yacht just before the murder. This dialog which is written by the director Rene Clement (or his co-writer Paul Gogeoff), is, in my opinion, one of the finest, in all film history. Delon, tells Ronet, as a joke, about his plan to kill him and adopt his identity. Ronet enjoys the joke and criticizes the plan on its weak points. Delon logically answers all the criticisms Ronet has made. Ronet gradually realizes that the plan is too thoughtfully conceived and too minutely prepared. He begins to suspect that it may not be a joke. He gets nervous and then frightened, but only too late. Delon, suddenly initiating to materialize the plan, gets up and stabs Ronet with a knife. Ronet dies with a shock in his eyes.

Delon throws away Ronet's body off the yacht into the sea. But he is unaware that he has failed to get rid of Ronet's body. At the final episode of the movie when the yacht is laid on the stocks, policemen(differently again from the book) find Ronet's moss covered body entangled with the propellers. In the film, Delon is caught by law whereas in the book, Ripley is not.

After 40 years, all I remember of the film are the things which are absent (maybe missed) in the book. I also like the Highsmith's book and don't like the idea of changing books text just for the fancies of directors of cinema or stage. But Clement's (and Gogeoff's) script, I think, was full of creativity. I like Minghella's recent version of "Talented Mr. Ripley" much less than the Highsmith's book and Clement's film version of it. Minghella, seems to me, among many other things, especially missed Delon and the Fifties and the subtleties of Clement's script.

After seeing the film and the fascinating personality of Delon as an actor, I had resolved that I would see any Delon film I would come across thereafter and did so.

COSKUN BUKTEL

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