Cette nuit là...

I must have watched hundreds of film noir until now, including many French ones, and I can tell that "Cette nuit là..." is, in my opinion, a true masterpiece. Directed by Maurice Cazeneuve, this movie tells the story of Jean, artistic director of a fashion magazine in Paris, married to the beautiful Sylvie. They both work for André Reverdy, who openly covets Sylvie, which of course frustrates Jean more and more... Toxic love, big money, sexual tension, intense paranoia and cold blackmail : you get it all with this one. The Altonesque photography provided by Léonce-Henri Burel is in itself a definition of what "film noir" means as a style and perfectly depicts a mesmerizing portrait of Paris in the 1950s. Based on Michel Lebrun's novel titled "Un silence de mort" ("A deadly silence") released in 1957, the construction of the plot and the different characters were designed in such a way that one never gets bored while watching this film. No wonder why director Stanley Kubrick himself praised this French film noir as one of the best movies ever made...