Pardonnez nos offenses

By sheer chance I managed to see a threadbare copy of this threadbare film. There is a little plea at the beginning of the film to ' forgive them their trespasses ' which means in this case a line-up of youths whipping another youth, two rapes, knife cuts to a face and and a sort of Romeo and Juliet ending which I will not reveal. The initial plea fell on deaf ears for me, and its Christian overtones. For a shoddy little film set in a no-man's land where puny rebels without a cause meet a band of gypsies it had a great deal of good actors. Pierre Vaneck, Gianni Esposito ( noted for his role in the superb Rivette film, ' Paris Nous Appartient ' ) and of course Marina Vlady. The only one who added life to this melodrama was Gianni Esposito. Vaneck looked pale and beautiful and bored, while Marina Vlady changed from promising tomboy to simply an object of sex appeal, almost ending up like Anna Karenin. The film is in fact a confused mess, which also includes female gypsy dancers flinging themselves absurdly across the screen. In the shortish playing time of one hour and twenty minutes they took up too much time, and the film score is horrendous. Robert Hossein makes a few line appearance which added nothing to this failure of a film which time has not been kind to. I give it a 4 for its misunderstood teenagers genre ( Hollywood did better with such films as ' Crime in the Streets ' and ' No Time to be Young ' ) and for Gianni Esposito and his screen presence.

Sandwiched between "les salauds vont en enfer" and "toi le venin ", in Hossein 's filmography, "pardonnez nos offenses " is the weakest link .It seems that the actor/director wanted to make his own "rebel without a cause " complete with the hopeless parents ,the packs , and the final tragedy.

It promised good things ;fine young actors: Marina Vlady , Hossein's then wife ,Pierre Vaneck ,Giani Esposito , Roger Coggio; the director's flair for film noir; the packs sometimes moving like ballets ; a scenery a la "on the waterfront" ; and one third of the movie is silent.

But the screenplay is hopeless:in the docks (of the bay?) ,two groups confront each other : young teenagers left to their own devices by their families, and a band of gypsies.A guy rapes a gypsy girl ;as a reprisal for it, the nomadics rape the leader of the pack's girlfriend who falls in love with a nice gypsy ....

Violence and sex ,but Marina Vlady , in turn a tomboy or a long-haired melancholy girl ,does not possess here the tenth of her erotic appeal in "les salauds vont en enfer".