La vérité

Through contemporary eyes, you might be quite surprised, what most of the courtroom did surmise, without any question or compromise, but the flashbacks tell no lies and the romance, sadly, 'meurts'.

This comes as a surprise entry in Brigitte Bardots filmography. Surely the blonde siren wasn't everybody's first chance for a female lead in a Henri-Georges Clouzot film; then again, the role she is playing fits perfectly. Dominique Marceau is a pretty young girl eager to leave her parents home and live with her sister in Paris. Other than her, Dominique is living out her lust for life, hanging around with friends, with parties, drinking and casual affairs. By coincidence she encounters her sisters fiancée, a very serious young musician. Eventually they fall in love, but Dominique can't be faithful and Gilbert (Sami Freys character) cannot adjust to her way of life. They break up, reunite, and break up again – with Gilbert more and more being ridiculed by her affairs with other men. On the other hand, Dominique cannot let him go either, and when he suddenly loses all his passion and returns to her sister, Dominique makes a decision. This is all told in flashback sequences during the trial in which Dominique is accused of Gilberts murder. The people participated in finding the truth, Clouzot tells us, are incapable of leaving their personal convictions and moral perspectives out of the court. Whatever the verdict may be, Dominique won't leave as an innocent. - "La Verité" has some memorable scenes, not least the one where Gilbert is conducting Strawinskys "Oiseau de Feu" on television, which blends over to the next scene while the music continues without a break. While being a serious drama about passion and justice, Clouzots film still makes good use of Bardots erotic energy – and yet there is never a moment where the images make the story irrelevant.

While the title might sound familiar to some hard-core fans, there are chances that many potential lovers will never have the opportunity to find this masterful courtroom drama on TV or DVD.

Indeed, the truth is that Henri-George Clouzot's film of the same name has been sentenced to decades of cinematic oblivion, 7 reviews on IMDb says enough. And the injustice is even more cruel because the movie stands alone as a masterpiece of the genre in a period full of gripping courtroom dramas such as "12 Angry Men", "Anatomy of a Murder", "Judgment at Nuremberg" or "Inherit the Wind" where the verdict mattered less than the quest for truth it initiated and the statements it spoke about the impact of human perceptions in the exercise of justice.

This is why the main question in "The Truth" is not 'who killed', not even 'how', but 'why?', the film takes place during the trial ensuing the murder of Gilbert Tellier, Sami Frey as a talented, handsome and ambitious conductor by his beautiful girlfriend, Dominique Marceau, who tried to kill herself right after. Dominique is played by a 25-year old Brigitte Bardot, in a breakthrough dramatic performance, that elevated her status to the most promising actress of her generation rather than a one-dimensional bimbo.

Yet Bardot's sex-appeal is still significant to the story as Clouzot intelligently exploits it to highlight the sulfurous past of a young idle girl who used her body as an asset, to live without working, without prostituting herself either. Indeed, Dominique Marceau isn't the typical slut: there is in her attitude something that nonchalantly confines to pathos, embodying the unease of the 60's youth, being in her own feminine and naughty way, a sort of rebel without a cause. And the intent of Clouzot is less to make a social commentary but to explore the different facets of a seemingly obvious personality.

The trial becomes the setting for a gripping character study, revisiting the life of Dominique Marceau before the killing from the perspective of two different counselors, played by two giants. Paul Meurisse denounces Dominique's laziness, the jealousy she always felt toward her more studious sister Annie, and a bunch of former lovers come to belie her faithfulness and love for Tellier, whom she murdered by vengeance, because she couldn't stand his relationship with Annie. As for her suicidal attempts, there were calculated acts since she was always sure someone would come at time to save her.

On the other side, Dominique's lawyer, played by Charles Vanel, tends to demonstrate that the murder was a passioned crime, an act of desperation from a tormented woman, as Dominique truly loved Gilbert and couldn't imagine life without him. One of the film's greatest delights is the verbal duel between the two actors, and their interactions that remind some of the great courtroom dramas, when two respectable adults, even friends, become visceral enemies during the trial, James Stewart and George C. Scott, Spencer Tracy and Frederic March or more recently, Tom Cruise and Kevin Bacon.

The interest of the Meurisse/Vanel antagonism is to keep a shadow of mystery around Bardot's real personality, a villainous killer or a woman victim of her passion. And as the story progresses, Dominique's portrait, originally painted in black and white reveals many shades of gray while her victim, the good-hearted Tellier becomes less and less innocent. The story opens in Paris where Bardot embodies the youth's ennui, living like a sort of social parasite whose only excuse is to use her body as thin consolation. Yet, she can't be a slut because she's totally unaware of conventions, she's beyond them, and doesn't even feel guilty.

Naturally, the inevitable happens, Tellier, Annie's friend falls in love with the sensual provincial girl. It's the typical love at first sight, but it's handled in a very talented way by Clouzot who's a real craftsman when it comes to human emotions. Hefirst meets Dominique when she's lying naked, topless in her bed, swinging her beautiful behind to some mambo music, she incarnates the luscious fruit, she's everything her sister is not, that's what makes her so obsessively desirable. Then the romance between Marceau and Tellier turns into a series of passion, deception, treachery and arguments like only a director like Clouzot could have painted without falling in a sentimental or either Manichean trap.

And as we get closer to the murder, we understand the roots of Dominique's behavior and her suicidal attempts carry deepest significances, rather than an act of despair, they crystallize the vulnerability of a girl that tries to find her place in society, torn between the true love of Gilbert and a sort of paradoxical innocence that raises above her lust. It feels strange but when you keep an eye on Bardot's performance, you'd think twice before calling a girl, a slut. Bardot was the perfect choice for the role and her breakdown transcends the sensual contours of her delicious body and can touch any soul.

After watching the film, I guess the reason of its lack of notoriety is the fact that H-G Clouzot is renowned for several masterpieces of the thriller genre, blending it with elements of horror, mystery or police procedural, therefore, a movie like "The Truth" comes too late in his filmography and doesn't meet the same recognition than the acclaimed "The Crow", "Quai des Orfèvres", not to mention the classic "Wages of Fear" and"Diaboliques". But on its own, it's a magnificent exploration of the human soul, a masterfully written courtroom drama, and still a Clouzot's film with its dark and pessimistic undertones, and the eternal cloud of ambiguity that envelops the character's personalities.

Bardot lived a romance with Frey after the film, and she was so affected by the experience that like her character, she tries to commit suicide, if a film haunted its own actors, it gives you an idea about the psychological impact it might have on you

Far from the best of Clouzot and consequently not much revived but of considerable interest nevertheless for giving Bardot her best part. She plays a young woman on trial for murdering her lover and it alternates between the trial itself and the events leading up to the killing. It's got an outstanding cast, (Charles Vanel and Paul Meurisse are excellent as opposing lawyers and Bardot herself is terrific), and yet it often feels rather common-place, (Clouzot, his wife Vera and 4 others are credited with the screenplay; maybe a case of too many cooks?). For once, he doesn't build any suspense and you never really care what happens to Bardot. In the end it's the personality of the victim, (a first-rate Sami Frey), that proves to be the film's point of interest, though at 130 minutes it is something of a long haul.

It appears that the outstanding director Henri-George Clouzot was unable to make movies short of being masterpieces. "La Verite" may be defined as the "European Rashomon", and, well aware that my opinion will be considered a sacrilege, I venture to say that Clouzot's film is even better than Kurosawa's celebrated masterpiece. In fact, the essence of both "Rashomon" and "La Verite" lies in the quest of the truth of a story, reconstructed through a sequence of flash-backs.

"La Verite" narrates the trial of the breathtakingly-beautiful-sexy lost girl Dominique (Brigitte Bardot), for the murder of her former boy-friend Gilbert (Samy Frey). Everybody (Dominique herself, her former friends and various lovers, her enemies, notably her own sister, as well as lawyers and prosecutors) states his own version of the facts, but what is the actual truth? To simplify the question: is Dominique just a ruthless killer, or was she a weak, enamored girl, victim of Gilbert's selfishness and bullying? As always in Clouzot's movies, "La Verite" is extremely intense, packed with a profound and uncompromising psychological study. The almost obsessive pace of events gives no break to both the characters and the audience. The script is first-rate, with plenty of cynical sense of humor, in spite of the dramatic facts told.

Brigitte Bardot was a great actress, endowed with an outstanding talent. A careful viewer could easily get it even from BB's performances in minor movies, like, say "Mademoiselle Pigalle". Here, under the sound direction of a genius like Clouzot, she is just sensational in a highly dramatic role. Of course, also the acting by the remainder of the cast is excellent, especially, needless to say, by the legends Charles Vanel and Paul Meurisse, as the two lawyers.

Possibly, the main credit of this fantastic movie lies in a gelid, sarcastic, misanthropic representation of human society. Arguably, this is the trade-mark of Clouzot's style, together with suspense, which here is present but not exasperated like in his other works. The world of the adults is wholly despicable, permeated as they are with hypocrisy, with prejudice and fear, especially in sexual matters, and with sickening cynicism, as masterly represented by the lawyer Paul Meurisse.

However, the youngsters are no better than the adults. They are just fatuous, selfish, conceited loafers, only able to utter pseudo-intellectual chats. As a matter of fact, when Dominique founds herself in dire straits, none of her young friends moves a finger to help her. And Dominique often appears even worse than the others. From some point of view, she might be considered a totally negative character.

So, what's the point of Clouzot? I think that's not an issue. He just shows what he sees; that's the style and the aim of one of the greatest artists in the history of cinema.

"La Verite" is a total masterpiece. It is impossible to be disappointed. Highly recommended.