Le combat dans l'île

Le Combat dans l'île is a political film (at least in its clothing) about a reactionary, the racist Clément (Jean-Louis Trintignant); his childhood friend Paul (Henri Serre), left-wing printer; and love interest Anne (Romy Schneider).

Clément and Anne are in a rut, she an ex-actress, now a kept woman, he a son of a wealthy industrialist, very serious and eager to kill lefty politicians. She likes to pass herself around, wedding ring or no, he treats her as if she were personal property, they are deserving of one another.

Anne's slatternly behaviour appears to be foreplay for unhealthy sex as Clément physically abuses her and she submits. Trintignant is not really up to the part, not in the mindset of the character, but Schneider really wows. The movie is imbued with an almost unhealthy enthusiasm for her beauty and energy, she pelts the camera with daisies, as it pursues her. That is the soul of the movie, images of Romy Schneider. For more after this fashion see her in L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot, a documentary containing footage from an extremely ambitious Clouzot production that collapsed as a result of obsession. L'enfer is the concept of fascination with Romy Schneider taken to ruinous extremes.

These early scenes are accompanied by an ominous and weary soundtrack, which was very noirish. I would have been perfectly content for the movie to continue in this manner and end fatalistically, but the film increasingly goes for a political angle. That is to say the movie becomes about Anne's growth and she redeems herself under the wing of Paul.

This second half of the movie is dissatisfying, firstly in that it is quite "on the nose" politically, Clément is shown as being part of a shady international network of fascists holding old grudges, whereas of course Paul lives the simple life. Clément's communist equivalents were just as militant and obscure, but the movie doesn't show this. The element of personal growth here is also not very satisfying, generally in the bildungsroman form you get personal growth being achieved only by painstaking efforts, Anne here is doing little more than changing bedfellows and having a nice stay in the country on Paul's tab.

The action sequence at the end of the film (which the title refers to) is handled with an absolute minimum of suspense and is bizarrely anticlimactic. My own view is that there were conflicting desires from producer and director, Malle wanted to make a political film (a shot across the bow to other directors who supported the French occupation of Algeria), Cavalier is interested in getting as much footage of Schneider as possible. Watch Cavalier's diary film Irène to see how extremely fascinated he is by womanly beauty: "Oh beautiful woman, intelligent and lively, who confirms the planet's faith in the quality of the human race." Filming beautiful and intelligent women like Romy Schneider can become the entire point of a movie and I think Le Combat dans l'île is an example of this. Purists such as myself resent the awkward trappings and pretence in the film that distract from its real nature.

As a winter of discontent ends in Paris, militaristic Jean-Louis Trintignant (as Clement Lesser) plans to assassinate a unionist politician. When his clandestine "hunting club" fails to achieve success, Mr. Trintignant must hide from authorities. He and alluring wife Romy Schneider (as Anne) take refuge with Trintignant's childhood chum Henri Serre (as Paul). Trintignant leaves to square things with former cohort Pierre Asso (as Serge) while Ms. Schneider resumes her (stage) acting career. Absent her husband, Schneider falls into Mr. Serre's bed. Then, Trintignant returns and wants to get combative...

This was the first feature from director Alain Cavalier, here assisted by Louis Malle. The leading men are meant to represent two extreme sides of the political aisle - commonly called right-wing (tending toward fascism in the extreme) and left-wing (tending toward communism in the extreme). Unfortunately, the film does not relay much of the men's friendship; we do not care that they become rivals. Most interesting is the relationship between Trintignant and Schneider, which may border (at least) on sadomasochism. There is good black-and-white photography by Pierre Lhomme, especially the location scenes.

****** Le combat dans l'ile (8/17/62) Alain Cavalier ~ Romy Schneider, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Henri Serre, Pierre Asso

In a France frightened by the rise of the far right a couple of weeks ago ,"le combat dans l'ile" seen today has a contemporary feel.The hero,Clément,played with talent by a deadpan Jean-Louis Trintignant,is a rich young man,who severs all links with his family ,except his wife Anne (Romy Schneider)and becomes part of an extremist group,which recalls the O.A.S..Their short-sighted philosophy considers that Occident is in jeopardy because of the socialists and the commies and they multiply the assassination attempts.Betrayed by his instructor,Serge takes refuge in his old friend Paul's house (Henri Serre),a socialist and a pacifist.

Shot in black and white ,with beautiful forest landscapes,this is an overlooked movie.Overshadowed by the new wave movies that were released by the dozen at the time,it could not appeal to the "conventional" audience either.Its slow pace,its rather risqué subject may have repelled most of the people.But it's about time to restore it to public favor.The story may be a fight between two men for a woman;but it is also the clash between two ideologies.

It proves that Romy Schneider was a great actress well before her heyday in the seventies:here,she definitively relinquishes her former insipid roles,the likes of Sissi to a modern woman.Henri Serre,who was Jim in Truffaut's "jules and Jim" gives a heartfelt and sensitive performance.Too bad he fell into oblivion soon after it.

Alain Cavalier started strongly with "le combat dans l'île" ,continued in the same vein with "l'insoumis" (1964)(starring Alain Delon and Léa Massari),but was disappointing afterward.Only "un étrange voyage" (1980) and "le plein de super"(1975)

are interesting.But "Therèse" redeemed him !

When the children of rich parents make a revolution: Jean-Louis Trintignant and Henri Serre fight for Romy Schneider

Alain Cavalier made a strangely impressive film at the beginning of the 1960s. Anne (GOLDEN GLOBE candidate Romy Schneider) and Clement (FELIX prize winner Jean-Louis Trintignant) are young married, she is a former actress and he is the son of a rich company owner. But Clement doesn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps, preferring to join Serge's (Pierre Asso) right-wing extremist group. Clement will soon carry out his first assassination attempt on an overly left-wing trade union leader. The shot is successful, but Serge has badly betrayed him. Together with Anne, Clement stays with a friend from the Algerian war. This Paul (Henri Serre, known from "Jules and Jim") is in many ways the exact opposite of Clement: newly widowed, owner of a small printing company that trains three apprentices. As Clement chases after the fugitive Serge to South America to finally judge him, Anne and Paul grow closer and closer. When Clement returns after Serge's execution has been completed, only one last confrontation with his rival Paul remains: the fight on the island...

As if Oscar nominee Jean Paul Rappeneau ("Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Hussar on the Roof" as director) was already anticipating the contrasts of the 1968 era in his script, the conflict between love of peace and radical resistance is fought out here. Of course it's also about Romy, but the argument is much deeper. Both men are familiar with weapons through their service in Algeria, both are dependent on a female hand in the household, so they are still very much caught up in the traditional life of a man. But they made different decisions based on this initial situation. And that makes this film - despite an annoying narrator's voice - still an interesting contemporary document. For Romy Schneider, the film was the breakthrough in French cinema, even though it flopped at the box office. But a film with her can't be bad at all. One of the members of the right-wing terrorist group is played by director Jean Pierre Melville ("Le Samourai").

The only weak point of the casting is Romy Schneider who is slightly over-acting. Beautiful B&W camera work and music. Directing work is directly influenced by Robert Bresson (LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE ; UN CONDAMNE A MORT S'EST ECHAPPÉ) & Louis Malle (ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD ; LE FEU FOLLET) : distant, "fire under the ice" style, sharp, precise, contained. The story is quite intelligent (an right-wing anti-communist idealist militant betrayed by his chief after a political assassination attempt + love story in which Romy Schneider is torn apart between him and his left-wing childhood friend : they will "fight in the island" to death, using Walther P-38 pistols) and time treatment managed by the editing work is superior art. One of the best movies made in France by the 1960's but it is necessary, when screening it, to not miss one sequence, even a short one, in order to be able to enjoy the subtle atmosphere construction. To be fully understood, this movie requires you to be aware of the political situation of France at that time.