Judex

Enigmatic avenger Judex kidnaps a corrupt banker on a quest for justice on behalf of his victims and then takes his innocent daughter under his wing to protect her from her father’s demonic mistress.

Enigmatic avenger Judex kidnaps a corrupt banker on a quest for justice on behalf of his victims and then takes his innocent daughter under his wing to protect her from her father’s demonic mistress.

This elaborate yet rather simplistic plot, borrowed from Louis Feuillade’s silent adventure mystery series of the same name (1917), offers Georges Franju the opportunity to orchestrate an inspired carnival of disguises and dream-like sequences that sometimes flirts with parody and consistently defies logic: characters die only to mysteriously reappear later, nuns brandish daggers and detectives narrate chapters from “Alice in Wonderland”, while black-clad silhouettes climb the walls.

Just like Judex’s magic tricks, as interpreted by real-life practical magician Channing Pollock, the entire film feels like an enchanting illusion where nothing is as it seems. Starting from an archetypal duel between good and evil, Franju resurrects the undeniable charms of a popular genre, while at the same time making the most surreal film in his entire career. Th.P.

judex - trailer από NyxtesPremieras

Πρωτότυπος τίτλος / Original title: Judex

Σκηνοθεσία / Director: Georges Franju

Σενάριο / Screenwriters: Jacques Champreux, Francis Lacassin

Φωτογραφία / DoP: Marcel Fradetal

Μουσική / Music: Maurice Jarre

Μοντάζ / Editor: Gilbert Natot

Ηθοποιοί / Principal Cast: Channing Pollock, Francine Bergé, Edith Scob, Théo Sarapo, Sylva Koscina, Michel Vitold

Γαλλία, Ιταλία / France, Italy
1963
Ασπρόμαυρο / B&W
94'
Γαλλικά / French

* Screens on 27th September

Publication date: 2013-09-11 12:30:00

Georges Franju: Behind the Mask

Shadowman

Once again, Georges Franju embraces his influences by Louis Feuillade's silent movie series and retro pop culture (Feuillade's grandson Jacques Champreux is back on screenwriting duty), propelling them to new and unprecedented heights of eccentricity.

Thomas the Impostor

Balancing lyricism and realism, the director illustrates the war-ravaged landscape as an arena of absolute absurdity, full of hollow delusions and unfulfilled fantasies, where innocence is doomed to crash and burn into the harsh reality.

Thérèse Desqueyroux

True to the spirit of Claude Mauriac's novel, Franju transports the viewer to the asphyxiating atmosphere surrounding Therese, inspiring compassion for his enigmatic heroine, whose extreme reactions and self-destructive trajectory play as a personal revolution against hypocrisy, in a society that's in a hurry to brand anyone who doesn't fit the norms as an outcast.

Eyes Without a Face

Despite popular prejudice, which refused to take the horror genre seriously at the time, Franju turns the ingredients of a cheap b-movie into high art, expressing his concerns about the limitations of science and radically renewing Gothic mythology with a bizarre hybrid of horror, science fiction, melodrama and film noir.