Director: Alain Cavalier
Screenplay: Alain Cavalier, Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Starring: Romy Schneider, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Henri Serre<strong>
Year: 1962
Duration: 105 min
Country: France
BBFC Certification: PG
That face that narrows to a knife, lips withdrawn into a badly-healed wound, did Jean-Louis Trintignant ever love well, or kindly, on-screen? To see that face in the shadows (of noir, of new-wave, of Pierre L’Homme’s masterful cinematography) is to know cruelty lies ahead.
Released last November – I’m late, but not so much as general critical appreciation for the movie was – Radiance Films bring Alain Cavalier’s first full-length feature, Le combat dans l’ile to disc.
Trintignant plays Clément, a privileged young Parisian as sour as cheap vin rouge, fallen in with right-wing extremists. He shares a home with a hastily stashed bazooka and Anne (Romy Schneider) who has had to give up much thanks to the restrictive mores of her timebomb husband. Once a popular actress she now fails – as anybody would – to live up to his sense of propriety and what passes for principles but is no more than bitterness. Clément goes on the run after being part of a failed assassination attempt and Anne must fight to escape his shadow.
Two years after Godard brought French cinema finger-clicking its way to an excitable, impatient rhythm that would act as a metronome for years to come, Cavalier’s film is a far steadier movie. Our slow walk to the island promised in the title is a march towards gallows rather than an irrepressible, clutch-baiting charge in a Ford Galaxie. The remorselessness of Clément, the hopelessness of Anne and – because true drama always requires three – the stolid reliability of Henri Serre as Clément’s old school-friend, Paul, is solid until the very end.
While the early promise of Romy Schneider’s turbulent, frustrated, Anne is squandered, Le combat dans l’ile contains enough beauty and misery to merit its ongoing need for reappraisal. Cavalier would go on to better (including Fill ‘Er Up With Super, also released by Radiance) but that’s as should be.
FILM
Released on Blu-ray by Radiance Films on the 27th of November, 2023. Crisp, clean and rich, the film is beautifully presented, images to get lost in.
LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES:
2K Restoration from the original camera negative
Original uncompressed French mono PCM audio
Interview with Alain Cavalier from French television show Cinema page (1962, 5 mins)
Faire la mort: A commentary featurette by Cavalier on photos from the Cinémathèque française (2011, 5 mins)
Interview with star Jean-Louis Trintignant from the Belgian television show Cinescope (1983, 7 mins)
The Succulence of Fruit: An interview with French critic Philippe Roger who provides an analysis of the film and Cavalier’s work (2020, 37 mins)
Un américain – Cavalier’s first short film about a sculptor who comes to Paris (1958, 17 mins)
France 1961 – a short film made by Cavalier on the occasion of Zeitgeist’s DVD release of the film (2010, 13 mins)
Behind-the-scenes photos including images from the archive of Louis Malle
Trailer
Optional English subtitles
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Ben Sachs who considers the film in the context of the French New Wave and genre filmmaking; and scholar and author of Late-Colonial French Cinema Mani Sharpe looks at the film and its political dimension
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
The extras are excellent and serve the best purpose: to illuminate and build on your appreciation of the film. Radiance’s disc is, as always, a flawless presentation bolstered with superb extra features including Cavalier’s first short film, Un américain; archive interviews with Cavalier and Trintignant and a rich discussion of the film with French critic, Phillipe Roger (who sees more in the film than I do but sees it with such conviction I almost believe him, a perfect piece in other words).