Critics are very divised on Jacques deray's most ambitious movie in the eighties:whilst Jean Tulard hailed it as the director's apex , Alain Garel ,in "la Saison Cinématographique 1986 ,was much less laudative , deploring that the denouement of Robin Cook's novel was cheapened .
Jacques Deray had already broached psychological thriller,notably in "La piscine",(1969) which holds up quite well today ;he would succeed again in "Un Crime "(1993) ,an unfairly overlooked film noir.
In the eighties , like in the seventies,he was too often at the beck and call of French superstars ("Trois Hommes A Abattre" ,"Le Marginal") ,and his production suffered accordingly ."On Ne Meurt Que Deux Fois" is much less derivative casting Serrault ,who from "Pile Ou Face " had relinquished comedies to dramatic works , is credible as a cop,but less so as a man who can seduce Charlotte Rampling who ,with Xavier Deluc -too often ignored by both directors and audiences - ,forms a fascinating ambiguous pernicious pair.
The movie often drags on ,and Deray's directing too static and conventional ; if the movie sometimes does the trick,it's because of Rampling' s deadly charm ,par excellence the English femme fatale and of Michel Audiard's final lines -he was to die shortly afterwards- : the conversation at the morgue with the medical examiners is perhaps the best moment in the whole movie and would justify the English title "you'll die with your eyes open" -the French one is my title .
