Il faut vivre dangereusement

"One must live dangerously" was then a laudable attempt to take the French thriller off the beaten path and it does ,in a way ,as it predates some aspects of the genre in the eighties.The two principals have much screen presence and they are the main reason to watch it today,for hindsight reveals some of the contrivances :first of all,the screenplay is muddled ,and the backbone of the plot (the search for a super diamond "Le Grand Mogol" ) gets lost in a series of murders ,Brasseur's few conquests and Girardot's good cooking .The director tries to build an unusual atmosphere and the scene in the hospital is Polanski-like but the tongue-in-cheek playing does not always serve the intention.

The scene of the orgy for chic people complete with masks will remain some of that of Kubrik's "eyes wide shut" (which of course was still to come in 1974)and most amazing thing ,there 's also a poem which goes like this :"eyes shut wide open..."