The Passage

It was a laudable attempt to get Delon out of his cops and robbers routine.But the results were not convincing,by a long shot,and when it was released the movie was slagged off.

I might be wrong,but it seems to me that Delon and his scriptwriters wanted to do their Abel Gance act.The hero is called Jean Diaz ,like in "j'accuse" .Like Victor Francen wanted to stop the next war in Gance's opus (the impending WW2),Delon's praiseworthy deed was ,thanks to his movie,to save the world from violence.And Death who wants the end of the world recalls the comet which was to destroy the earth in Gance's "la fin du monde" Saying that Manzor is not Gance is to state the obvious.Really too bad because the idea was rather original in the ossified French cinema of the eighties (the golden thirties and forties were far behind).There are,here and there,some good scenes -notably the ghost train and the video tape sequence which "my life" starring N.Kidman and M. Keaton stole- but they are few and far between.For instance ,Death's representation is nothing but a cliché:the grim reaper indeed.It seems to be out of "tales from the crypt" (even if we do not see its face,of course),with a spooky hoarse voice naturally that is guaranteed to net horse laughs.The dialog is often ludicrous too:Delon screaming to Death "if you touch my child ,I'll kill you(sic)! No more scythe for Death,but computers which unfortunately seem obsolete today.The final scenes,whose purpose is to move the audience to tears ,use turgid music,slow motion and to crown it all a syrupy song by Francis Lalanne.

Death is not the end,they say.