Le rideau cramoisi

I saw this picture in the 60s quite often at the Thursday night film presentations at Frankfurt (Germany) University. Actually I thought to remember a color film, but IMDb mentions that it is a black and white film. Whenever they screened it I went to see it. I don't exactly remember what it was all about and why it was called the somehow red curtain.

I think someone died while making love. But I don't even remember whether it was a man or lovely Anouk Aime. I am sure that there was no use of the Schufftan process because it definitely was a chamber play and no outdoor action. Alexandre Astruc (one of the many fathers of the NEW WAVE in France) was directing with great elegance and Eugen Schufftan,who had shot PEOPLE on Sunday in Berlin before he emigrated to Hollywood, did great lighting work. Well, just after the war no one in France had money to buy Kodak color stock, so I guess I saw a fine romantic 'colorful' picture in black and White and I probably just loved to see Anouk over and over again.

Michael Zabel, Rodenbach/Offenbach

This is perhaps Astruc's greatest film, and for many years it has been not available. It can be seen on YouTube and I marvelled yet again at the superb performances of Jean-Claude Pascal and Anouk Aimee, as they played lovers for one night with consequences that are both unexpected and shattering to watch. He is an army officer who stays overnight and she is his hosts daughter. End of spoilers. It was highly regarded when it first came out, and despite its short length one comes away from it totally fulfilled by its mystery and the superb use of black and white. I cannot praise it highly enough, but it is still a rarity and quite unique in its form of narration.

The term "Camera -Stylo" (=movie camera pen) was never better applied than on "Le Rideau Cramoisi" ,a medium-length based on a short story taken from Barbey D'Aurevilly's "Les Diaboliques" -which HG Clouzot quotes at the beginning of his own "Diaboliques".

"Le Rideau Cramoisi" is not a thriller,mind you -although in its way,it is ,as the lovers might be discovered every time they meet. Camera pen ,for the whole story is told by the hero in voice over;the four principals do not say a single line ,but it has nothing to do with the silent era:their playing is what you should call "underplaying" and they all move in a gloomy atmosphere of a bourgeois mansion.

The viewers ,not familiar with the short story,might find the ending cynical and a bit macho;I must say I like Astruc's "Une Vie" (more conventional in its form) best.

Jean-Claude Pascal is a newly appoinedted army office in olden days. He is bivouaced with ome dull bourgeoisie, but they have a beautiful daughter, 20-year-old Anouk Aimee, who begins an affair with him.

This was a very well received short feature when it came out; it received a bunch of awards on the festival circuit including the Prix Louis Delluc. My issues are that it was a very dark print, so dark that Mlle Aimee's youthful beauty was lost in the shadows, and there was no dialogue. That's not a deal-breaker for a silent movie fan like me. However, the events of the story were narrated by Yves Furet, reminiscing about the events on the screen, which I could not see.

It's certainly possible that a better print would produce a better impression. Yet as it stands, it seems to be a dark story aboudark events in a a world so dark that nothing can be seen.

It is a shocking loss to cinema that this unique and beautiful film is almost completely lost. Is it because it is too short ? Is it because the English, and the French themselves do not see that it is masterly in the way that it ' narrates ' the film on to the screen ? It is also unique that it is a film of silence without silence. It is almost literally written as you watch the haunting way the army officer played superbly by Jean-Claude Pascal sees the daughter of his hosts and seduces her, and the terrible consequence that follows. A night of ' love ' that brings together the union of both passion and death. The images disturb, and excite at the same time and the pace quickens as if a pen is racing across the pages of the story. I believe it is Alexandre Astruc's best film and yet it has disappeared from view. I treasure it, but sadly an aura of indifference surrounds it. A crying shame and why on earth is no one seemingly aware of its loss ? And last but not least Anouk Aimee plays the young woman. Doesn't that count for anything ? A great actor and one of France's most beautiful women.