Thomas the Impostor

It was the last interesting movie by Georges Franju whose "les Yeux Sans Visages" is known world-wide .It was also the second time he had used Emmanuelle Riva ,one of the best actresses of the French cinema.I've got the strange feeling that Riva was so gifted a thespian French directors were afraid of her.Riva had been a perfect "Thérèse Desqueyroux" two years before.

She portrays a princess,who ,during WW1,like rich idle women ,(see also in Martin Du Gard's "les Thibault" the character of Madame De Fontanin )transformed her town house into a hospital for the persons who were wounded in the war.Young officer Thomas helps her: actually ,the boy could not enlist,he is not really a soldier, for he is only sixteen (hence the title of the movie:"the impostor").

George Franju used to say:"Thomas is not a hero(..)He is an adventurous dreamer who is living in a world which is the opposite of the world of his dream.And war is realistic and unfortunately dirty."

Franju's flair for strange atmosphere and his sense of mystery are still intact ,"Thomas " is his last great movie and his directing is often dazzling:

-a galloping horse with its mane on fire in a deserted village..

-the flat beaches of the North Sea where land and water are as one...

-the ambulances going through the night with a short shot of Edith Scob's face ....

Humor is also present: a warmonger chanting "La Marseillaise " and a soldier saying "what's that?I dunno.

And last but not least ,this scene Luis Bunuel might have loved : a priest opening the lips of a dead soldier with a knife to slip a host into his mouth!

Today "Thomas " ,which was made two years after Cocteau's death is an overlooked movie ;and that Franju thought the Nouvelle Vague guys were b....... didn't help matters!

Let's mention once againthe outstanding talent of Mrs Riva ,who ,after "Therese Desqueyroux" gives a superlative performance ;she's always been one of my favorite French actresses and even when the movie is mediocre (recently "Le Grand Alibi" ) ,she manages to make the best of it.Her young co-star ,Fabrice Rouleau(Raymond Rouleau's son ,he died in 2001) has fallen into oblivion but he was the young man with the child in his eyes ,a child who refuses to grow up and a forerunner of the young hero of "Die Blechtrommel" ("the tin drum").

We had enjoyed Franju's "Judex", but I should have done some research before buying a copy of this one. There is no amount of "cinematic art" or art of any kind that could justify setting fire to the mane of a living horse. And yet, here, in a scene of WWI destruction, comes a madly galloping horse through the rubble with its mane on fire. This was made in France in the mid-1960's before they could fake such a thing with CG. I was aware that an early film by Franju was a documentary in a slaughterhouse, which included, among other things, a horse being killed. But that would presumably have happened with or without a camera around. Here, Franju was making an "artistic" statement about the horrors of war. The fact that he couldn't make the same statement without torturing an animal only diminishes his talent and his humanity.

(And, yes, I'm well aware of Hollywood's long history of animal abuse. I grew up on Errol Flynn movies, but I can no longer watch "Charge of the Light Brigade", just for one example.)