RED CIRCLE. Excellent French classic crime movie

Melville in Red Circle meticulously planned each scene to achieve incredible minimalism. The prisoner’s escort and the culminating robbery scene are the best examples of Melville’s minimalism—no music or dialogues, only sounds created by sound engineers breaking the silence. The plot shows inspirations from American film noir, especially John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950), but the style presented by Melville is his own, making this masterful crime film not a typical story about criminals but a fully authorial work.

Gangster Corey receives a tip from a turnkey about new security measures in a renowned jewellery store before leaving prison. He has many enemies waiting to catch him on the outside, but unexpectedly, Corey also gains friends willing to risk for him. These are Vogel, an escaped convict, and former police sniper Jansen. They will help him carry out the theft of valuable jewellery. These people, forming the gang of thieves, start the game with white pawns, so they must make the first move to prompt the officers into action. The police chief believes that although people are born innocent, they will never remain so. Also not without fault is the old and tired Commissioner Mattei, who couldn’t prevent the prisoner’s escape. To redeem himself for that failure, he tries to catch not only Vogel but also his accomplices. Perhaps he is an experienced and intelligent cop, but the passage of time has strained his health; he no longer has the strength to chase criminals. With such an opponent, the gangsters’ chances increase.

The world presented in Red Circle is created for men—women will not find their place here; they can only interfere and jeopardize the mission’s success. Moreover, women are known for their senseless chatter and are unsuitable for the “silence is golden” action. Men usually know how to keep their tongues in check and can, like cats, act quietly to achieve their goals without being noticed by anyone. The most important characteristic that unites Melville’s gangsters is loyalty. This makes them people with principles, full of contempt for traitors and informants. In this respect, Melville’s characters in Red Circle resemble the titular Wild Bunch (1969) from Sam Peckinpah’s film. It’s not easy to be loyal in the world of thieves because big heists unleash unimaginable greed and avarice in a person. In Melville’s world, gangsters are not completely corrupt because cooperation, proving one’s worth, testing one’s skills and inclinations for risk-taking are more important than gold and money.

All the actors adapted to the director’s strict style, limiting facial expressions and gestures to the necessary minimum. Alain Delon played a good, albeit rather typical for him, role as Corey. He embodies a former gangster who is not a ruthless killer or womanizer—he is only interested in jobs that can make him rich. In Delon’s interpretation, he is composed, able to maintain a poker face even in extremely stressful situations. When a policeman asks him to open the car trunk, the viewer doesn’t know if Corey realizes that a wanted criminal is hiding inside. Vogel, played by the famous Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté, is a cunning man who has not been proven guilty and is escorted as a suspect. However, he certainly has committed more than one crime, and he is not thinking about a quiet retirement. Volonté often played villains because he excels in such roles.

Casting the well-known comedian Bourvil as Inspector Mattei seems like an unfunny joke (it’s as if Leslie Nielsen were cast as “Dirty” Harry), yet André Bourvil proved himself in this non-comedic role. Mattei is a good detective who quickly makes decisions, wastes no time on unnecessary chatter, and can predict the opponent’s moves. This means he doesn’t have to chase criminals—they will come to him if he plays the game sensibly, using his mind rather than muscles. The fourth important character in this story is Jansen, played by Yves Montand. This former cop and sniper with a keen eye gets a chance to overcome his alcoholism. He is completely useless with a vodka bottle at home, so he takes part in the action to help someone. Who? It doesn’t matter because, working in the police, he realized that cops are no different from criminals. An important character is the owner of a nightclub, Santi (François Périer), who doesn’t want to be an informant but is put against the wall, deprived of the choice.

The Parisian criminal world is presented in Red Circle in a sparse and ascetic way. There are no spectacular actions, and the story is told modestly, if not monotonously and tediously. However, this approach turned out to be ideal for presenting the actions of true professionals who don’t ask questions and calmly do what is necessary. The cold professionalism, alienation, pursuit of perfection, solidarity, and contempt for authority make them interesting, ambiguous characters—loners with as many strengths as weaknesses. Although the world created by Melville seems not entirely real, the gangster characters are not mindless killing machines but real people. The French crime novelist is sometimes compared to another French minimalist, Robert Bresson. Both filmmakers reject the theatrical form dominated by dialogue and actor expression. Both Melville and Bresson focus on meticulous staging and mundane activities, showing characters as emotionless beings stripped of all emotions. Both give more weight to working with sound engineers than composers. Both authors are characterized by asceticism and professionalism typical of artists rather than craftsmen.

Red Circle is an exemplary representative of the French variant of crime film. The film is simple, but the minimalism used in it has a positive effect on the viewer. The combination of meaningful silence and numerous implications with a schematic gangster story in a select cast makes it truly a piece of decent cinema. The poetics of American film noir are palpable here, and the tension is built like in a Hitchcockian thriller. The characters’ actions lead to a spectacular finale, but after the final scene, the viewer does not feel complete satisfaction. Not because the director did a botched job, but because it’s difficult to define the concepts of good and evil here. Whom should we root for? The policeman because he catches criminals? Or perhaps the recidivists because they shoot only as a last resort and form a tight-knit group capable of achieving great deeds together? Red Circle is an excellent eurocrime film that you can easily fall asleep watching, but you can also find a few interesting twists that make it engaging, stylish, and despite the ubiquitous monotony—captivating and unforgettable cinema.