This film is literally right up my alley.
I adored watching Serie Noire and it’s so close to being a masterpiece. Unfortunately, there are some uncomfortable choices made that make this hard to recommend to people. The best part about this film is how it takes the noir genre and flips it on its head. One of my favorite films is Le Samouraï. Having a film with a protagonist that’s the complete opposite of Jef Costello is amazing. Our protagonist is a fantastic character. He’s a weasel and a coward who tries his best to act like a stoic character. However, he’s anything but stoic and is a loser. This film wouldn’t be anywhere near as good without Patrick Dewaere. He does an absolutely incredible job at portraying someone with such a manic personality. It’s an incredible shame of his unfortunate passing. The story is pretty typical of a noir film, but having such an unprofessional and unprepared character traversing the plot makes it a great ride. Surprisingly, the film is darkly comedic. I wasn’t expecting this film to be funny, but I found myself laughing at so many points. However, I need to address the elephant in the room. Having a 16-year-old girl strip completely nude and showing it at the start of the film is so incredibly gross. There are plenty of ways around showing full frontal nudity of a literal child while progressing the story when it could have just been easily implied. It’s inexcusable and I can understand how that might turn people away from this otherwise brilliant film. Another issue the film sometimes deals with is scenes going on for too long. However, this generally becomes less of an issue for me after a rewatch. Despite these flaws, I love the themes and character development. Frank is always talking about how unlucky of a person he is. I think for the most part, he is a very lucky individual. He is always putting himself in the worst situations unprepared. Then, when it inevitably turns out bad, he blames it on luck. But, throughout the film, he could have and should have had way worse repercussions. He is such a bumbling buffoon that even with his remarkable luck, he still ends up in unfavorable positions. I do love what Serie Noire does with the noir genre. But, it’s so hard to love this film when it has such a needlessly gratuitous scene of a child. Still, if you can get past that mentally, there’s a fantastic film here. It makes me want to read the book it was based on to see if there was anything that was left unadapted or that I didn’t pick up on.
This film is literally right up my alley.
I adored watching Serie Noire and it’s so close to being a masterpiece. Unfortunately, there are some uncomfortable choices made that make this hard to recommend to people. The best part about this film is how it takes the noir genre and flips it on its head. One of my favorite films is Le Samouraï. Having a film with a protagonist that’s the complete opposite of Jef Costello is amazing. Our protagonist is a fantastic character. He’s a weasel and a coward who tries his best to act like a stoic character. However, he’s anything but stoic and is a loser. This film wouldn’t be anywhere near as good without Patrick Dewaere. He does an absolutely incredible job at portraying someone with such a manic personality. It’s an incredible shame of his unfortunate passing. The story is pretty typical of a noir film, but having such an unprofessional and unprepared character traversing the plot makes it a great ride. Surprisingly, the film is darkly comedic. I wasn’t expecting this film to be funny, but I found myself laughing at so many points. However, I need to address the elephant in the room. Having a 16-year-old girl strip completely nude and showing it at the start of the film is so incredibly gross. There are plenty of ways around showing full frontal nudity of a literal child while progressing the story when it could have just been easily implied. It’s inexcusable and I can understand how that might turn people away from this otherwise brilliant film. Another issue the film sometimes deals with is scenes going on for too long. However, this generally becomes less of an issue for me after a rewatch. Despite these flaws, I love the themes and character development. Frank is always talking about how unlucky of a person he is. I think for the most part, he is a very lucky individual. He is always putting himself in the worst situations unprepared. Then, when it inevitably turns out bad, he blames it on luck. But, throughout the film, he could have and should have had way worse repercussions. He is such a bumbling buffoon that even with his remarkable luck, he still ends up in unfavorable positions. I do love what Serie Noire does with the noir genre. But, it’s so hard to love this film when it has such a needlessly gratuitous scene of a child. Still, if you can get past that mentally, there’s a fantastic film here. It makes me want to read the book it was based on to see if there was anything that was left unadapted or that I didn’t pick up on.
