The great French filmmaker Hennri-Georges Clouzot had a notoriously dark view of the human spirit. In his big international hits The Wages of Fear (Salaire de la Peur, 1953) and Les Diaboliques (1956) the atmosphere is rancid. In Clouzot’s movies friendship and marriage are bonds that strangle hope. In his world, which is corrupt, faith in authority – in church, state or the dollar – is ultimately useless; cruelty and indifference are survival techniques to be savoured.
This mood of bitterness drives Le Corbeau, Clouzot’s second feature. A superb film, well known to cineastes, Clouzot rehearses many of the themes and ideas he later developed in his more famous thrillers.
Made in France during WWII under the German occupation, through a production house that freely collaborated with the Nazis, Le Corbeau is all about suspicion and betrayal.
Set in a tiny provincial burgh called St Robin, the story, which derives from a real incident, is all about 'poison pen’ letters. Signed by someone calling themself 'the Raven', these notes – sent to strategically chosen victims – reveal squabbles, long held secrets, and sexual indiscretions amongst the townsfolk. But instead of bonding in an effort to catch the Raven, the community seems to relish the psychological 'blood-letting’. Once they see they can use the Raven as a way to settle old scores or act out their distaste for 'the undesirable’, they do, their malice hiding under the cover of piety and morality.
Much of the action revolves around the austere 'ladies man’ Dr Remy (Pierre Fresnay) and his efforts to discover the identity of the Raven, and whose affair with the married Laura (Micheline Francey) makes him vulnerable to scandal. Meanwhile, there is the decidedly cryptic behaviour of Laura’s much-older husband, the psychologist Dr. Vorzet (Pierre Larquey), who seems to view the frantic goings-on in the town, conjured by the Raven, as some kind of 'thought-experiment’.
Short, dense and meticulously plotted, Le Corbeau is a fever-dream of dread. Once the mood is set, each appearance of a new letter from the Raven is like a knife in the air poised to strike. In his cock-eyed camera angles, and the stark and inky chiaroscuro photography Clouzot creates an otherworldly, almost mystical character around the letters, like they were arising not from a pen, but the collective Id of the town.
Madman’s disc features a fine print, with excellent sound, the original theatrical trailer and a typically erudite and engrossing commentary from film scholar Dr Adrian Martin, who discusses the making of the film, its history and the trouble it caused Clouzot after WWII’s end, since it was seen as anti-French, pro-Nazi propaganda. Don’t miss it.
