On the net,there's a dubious site where ,provided you give some information about yourself,"they" can predate the day when you die .It's not free,mind you ,but for a couple of Euros or dollars you can know it.
This is the very subject of "Le Monde Tremblera" aka "La Révolte Des Vivants " (revolt of the living);no internet but a machine a young doctor has invented :it can tell you how many years ,days,hours and minutes you have left to live.Some want to know ,some don't .
This may be the only worthwhile French sci-fi movie of the era,in spite of the obvious lack of means and the rather laughable machine;another attempt at sci-fi called "Croisière Siderales" ,with the same female star ,Madeleine Sologne can't be taken seriously.
If "Le Monde Tremblera" holds up quite well ,it's because his subject is timeless and anybody can relate to it: when you watch it,you can't help but wonder "and me? How many years ? months?" The screenplay ,based on an obscure forgotten book,was written by one of our genius ,Henri-Georges Clouzot,the only French director who enjoys two movies in the IMDb top 250.Clouzot's touch can be felt in the scientist character: from the first sequence we know he is a very cynical man ,in spite of his nice look:he tries to use a prostitute as a guinea pig to test the machine;as his friend ,the "good" doctor says :nothing can move you,friendship,love ,despair.The two characters can be seen as the two sides of the same person,which the last scene,with its unusually inventive use of light and shadows ,its dark faces and the symmetrical roles of the two characters,brings out :Clouzot would take this technique to its absolute perfection in his second work ,the celebrated "Le Corbeau".
Jean Durand is evil,and his ambition knows no bounds ,he goes as far as to say that it's the 8th day of the creation;but his fiancée 's father (Erich Von Stroheim)is as cynical ^;his rapaciousness shows when he wants to use the machine to swindle the life assurances .
An alternate title is " the revolt of the living" :when people know their days are numbered ,they want to drag the others with them .Another hint at the Bible mentions Samson destroying the temple .
"I do not want to know" says a character "I couldn't go on living if I knew".Could you?
