{"id":4105,"date":"2009-04-02T20:40:26","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T04:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4105"},"modified":"2009-04-03T17:35:20","modified_gmt":"2009-04-04T01:35:20","slug":"rififi-jules-dassin-1955-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4105","title":{"rendered":"Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955): France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reviewed by <a href=\"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?author=29\">Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; float: left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moviegoods.com\/assets\/product_images\/1020\/422488.1020.A.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Click to Enlarge\" width=\"210\" height=\"325\" \/>The greatest revenge is success.\u00a0 If this is true, then director Jules Dassin\u2019s 1955 <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0048021\/\" target=\"_new\">Rififi<\/a><\/em> is a sweet revenge against the HUAC which caused him to be blacklisted in the early 1950\u2019s.\u00a0 Following his blacklist, Dassin, who had not made a film since 1950, was invited to direct this French film noir which subsequently earned him several honors including Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival.<\/p>\n<p>When recently released career criminal Tony \u201cThe Stephanois\u201d (Jean Servais) is approached about a small heist to steal three diamonds out of a jewelry store window, he decides he can plan an even bigger one to rob the jewelry store\u2019s safe.\u00a0 The four criminals&#8211;Mario (Robert Manuel), Jo (Carl Mohner), Cesar (Jules Dassin), and The Stephanois&#8211;case the store, planning out their heist and learning how they will defeat their obstacles, including a rather noisy alarm.\u00a0 Then there is the lengthy process of the heist itself, then the aftermath.<\/p>\n<p>The film has some colorful characters and the acting is collectively good, especially Jean Servais\u2019s underplayed portrayal of the aging Stephanois, but the film lives on two strengths.\u00a0 The first is the incredible thirty three minute scene of the heist, which is carried out in near silence without a word of dialogue or music.\u00a0 The scene is an exhilarating tribute to silent era filmmaking as everything you need to know about the scene is visually displayed, and all the dialogue between the characters is conveyed in the actors\u2019 eyes, faces, and body language.\u00a0 The second strength of the film is its brilliant black and white\u00a0cinematography which makes incredible use of the film\u2019s wonderful Parisian locations.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s back alleys, Paris streets, buildings, countryside, and whether day or night, the cinematography by Phillippe Agostini is as gorgeous as can be.\u00a0 Dassin&#8217;s inventive\u00a0direction invigorates the film and it stands as one of the greatest of the heist\/crime film genre, and a classic of film noir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. The greatest revenge is success.\u00a0 If this is true, then director Jules Dassin\u2019s 1955 Rififi is a sweet revenge against the HUAC which caused him to be blacklisted in the early 1950\u2019s.\u00a0 Following his blacklist, Dassin, who had not made a film since 1950, was invited to direct [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}