Symphonie pour un massacre

Jean Rochefort

Jacques Deray's Symphonie pour un massacre is a tightly constructed and cold eyed crime drama from 1963. Derived from Alain Reynaud-Fourton's novel, Les Mystifiés, the adaptation was written by Deray with help from Claude Sautet and one of the film's actors, José Giovanni. The flick centers on five gangsters who band together as partners in a narcotics deal. However, we are clued in from the start that there is no honor among these thieves. The nominal protagonist, Jabeke (Jean Rochefort), is revealed within the first reel to be having an affair with the wife of one of his criminal cohorts, Claude Dauphin's Valoti. Jabeke is also keen to rip off his brothers in crime. He stalks the gangster Moreau (Giovanni) who is taking a large satchel of cash to Marseilles in order to initiate the narcotics deal. Jabeke murders Moreau on the train to Marseilles and steals the cash. Needless to say, Jabeke's plan eventually goes awry and the film ends in a cascading wave of violence promised by its title.

The film is firmly entrenched in the shady milieu of bars and gambling clubs seen in the films of Jacques Becker who had adapted Giovanni's first novel, Le Trou, in 1960. Deray shoots his players from a low angle conveying the menace of an underworld in which no one can be trusted. Symphonie... is unhurried in showing us the machinations of its plot. The audience is fully clued in to the perfidy of the characters. Deray percolates his drama at a slow boil never resorting to jump scares or concocted suspense. The fact that we can see the dénouement of this film a mile away does not lessen its fascination, but works to tighten the snare Deray has fashioned for his characters. The tightness of the movie's construction, particularly its editing, results in marvelous moments of ironic counterpoint. 

Symphonie... is a feast of Gallic film acting. Rochefort, known primarily up to that point as a light comedian both on stage and in films like Cartouche, was given a career boost by showing he could be equally equally effective as a dramatic lead. His stoic mien is the focal point of the film. Claud Dauphin is affecting as the cuckolded Valoti and Charles Vanel, most famous for The Wages of Fear, is equally superb. Claude Renoir's vivid black and white cinematography of Paris, Lyon, and Brussels is reason enough to see the film. Léon Barsacq's art direction hips us the personality of the characters more, unfortunately, than some of the performers do. Deray's use of space is tightly controlled and largely static. When he does move his camera, whip pans and tightly coiled dollies, it is a cold smack to the viewer. 

I will conclude with a bit on José Giovanni because it will be the proper chilly end note for this short review. Giovanni wrote over twenty noir novels and many film scripts, including Melville's Le deuxième souffle. He had a real life appreciation for crime and moral depravity. Before assuming the pen name Giovanni, he was born Joseph Damiani, a French citizen of Corsican descent. The son of a gambler, Giovanni was twenty when he began collaborating with the Vichy government and its Gestapo henchmen. He belonged to the German Schutskorp which hunted camp escapees and dodgers. When not capturing Jews and other undesirables and pilfering their loot, Damiani would blackmail Jews in hiding. And there was more, including murder. After liberation, Damiani narrowly escaped the hangman's noose and ended up serving eleven and a half years in stir. He was unrepentant when he died a Swiss citizen in 1986.