Lesser-Known French New Wave Murder Mystery Stars Maurice Ronet
DIRECTED BY JACQUES DONIOL-VALCROZE/FRENCH/1962
DVD STREET DATE: NOVEMBER 29, 2022/ICARUS FILMS
On paper, this layered 1962 French noir murder thriller La Dénonciation (aka The Immoral Moment) reads as a can’t-miss cinema experience. In execution, however, filmmaker (and former Cahier du cinéma co-founder) Jacques Doniol-Valcroze can’t quite deliver on any such promise. The flashback-inside-flashback structure is perhaps too labyrinthine, too distancing, for its own good. It does, however, have its moments… “immoral” or otherwise.
Shot in shadowy black and white, La Dénonciation begins with a man nearly stumbling over a dead body while wandering through a darkened, closed, and empty nightclub called “The Play-Boy”. Just then, two other mysterious figures, a man and a woman, appear, bringing a burst of chaos. The initial man, we learn during ongoing scenes of police questioning, is a respected and successful film producer named Michel (played as engrossing as the screenplay allows by Maurice Ronet). As set dressing, there’s what sure appears to be a real actual Oscar statuette on his desk. (Yet another mystery: who belongs to it?)
As the investigation deepens, we find ourselves lost in Michel’s many Nolan-esque memory detours. As the film’s structure circles ‘round and ‘round the opening scenario in The Play-Boy, other elements enter the picture, including Michel’s precarious involvement with the French Resistance during World War II, life-threatening notes, his vapid but lovely wife (Françoise Brion), and strippers who may or may not know more about what went on in their workplace.
It’s with these elements that Doniol-Valcroze lands most within the Nouvelle Vague movement as we know it, as La Dénonciation finds itself dealing with the festering and then-morphing open wounds of the war, as well as unwritten pretty women for the sake of pretty women, and even a little racy nudity. I wish I could say it all adds up something as interesting as it sounds. As is, it’s a fully middling piece of obscure French film history, offering memorable performances and some effectively tense moments.
Doniol-Valcroze is best remembered today as one of the forgotten (i.e., unsuccessful) auteurs of the French New Wave- which is to say, forgotten. While films like this prove to be eye-opening discoveries for classic World Cinema buffs, they often can’t help but underline the very reasons they ended up under the radar in the first place.
All that laid out, La Dénonciation provides all the evidence needed to back the current restoration efforts of these titles by Icarus Films and others. Icarus’ 2022 extras-less DVD of La Dénonciation remains the film’s Region A go-to physical media edition, though seeing how its Doniol-Valcroze predecessor A Game for Six Lovers recently received a beautiful Blu-ray upgrade, perhaps there are reasonable high definition hopes for this as well.