“Do you often stalk people?”
While it’s still Noirvember, I thought it only appropriate to pay tribute to our noirs from overseas, the titles which feature many of the genre’s classic traits draped in international flavors. Even if spoken in different languages and seeped in other cultures, the stain of noir doesn’t know the difference between backgrounds. Themes such as lust, vengeance, and the power of fate still ring true, no matter what country they’re taking place in.
Earlier this year, two pitch-perfect examples of international noir, 1951’s Victims of Sin and 1996’s The Apartment, made their way to home video, taking their places amongst the genre’s best and reminding us how the spirit of noir knows no cultural bounds whatsoever.
Victims of Sin
Set in Mexico City, a nightclub dancer named Violeta (Ninon Sevilla) is the toast of the town but immediately finds her reputation and life turned upside down when she adopts an abandoned infant, triggering the ire of some of the most powerful men in the city.
While it isn’t Los Angeles or New York, Mexico City in the post-war early 50s is the perfect noir backdrop with its various pockets of society’s dark side and the hope of escaping it that many cling to. Director Emilio Fernandez takes time before getting to the noir nitty gritty to showcase a collection of cabaret dance sequences, all of which are spectacular and speak so much to the culture, helping to establish the movie’s world perfectly. Another element that helps to give Victims of Sin a real sense of place is the touching sense of community that’s shared by the group of dancers, the most revered being Violeta. Noir as a genre rarely had a heroine at the forefront, but as a character, Violeta blows her small competition out of the water. The sheer ferocity and determination in the character are coupled with the sacrifice she makes. Violeta decides to take in the abandoned infant at great expense to her personal and professional reputation for no other reason besides the fact that he has no one else.
The act itself is a testament to the power of true humanity. It’s also a mother’s instinct found in a woman whom society wouldn’t expect to have such an emotional pull that drives the film. If some were to insist that Victims of Sin is more melodrama than noir, they would do well with another viewing. Fernandez inserts plenty of noir touches, including shadows, dark lighting, musical cues, and lengthy stretches of silence throughout. Meanwhile, the film, which almost entirely takes place at night, contains a darkness to it that can even be felt in the few daytime scenes. Stylistic flourishes aside, it’s Violeta’s self-imposed mission to give her newfound son a life filled with love and hope that ultimately rises above everything else. No matter if she’s faced with dangerous thugs or a judgmental community, Violeta soldiers on without a second thought, knowing that all that matters is the bond she feels with a child who was perhaps always meant to be hers.
The Apartment
In the 1996 Paris-based romantic noir The Apartment, an executive named Max (Vincent Cassel) is about to leave on a business trip when, by happenstance, he believes he has seen Lisa (Monica Belucci), an ex-girlfriend whom he feels was the love of his life but has not seen in two years.
An international hit when it was first released, The Apartment boasts a labyrinthian plot that’s full of romance, intrigue, desire, and deception. What begins with Max, a seemingly ordinary man who has it all, or is about to have it all once he marries the lovely Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain) turns into a multi-player game of love with each player trying to alter the plans that fate and destiny have in store for them. Among the other participants are Lucien (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), Max’s old friend, and Alice (Romane Bohringer), a mysterious woman who has always loved our hero from afar. Taking place in both the present day and years earlier, writer/director Gilles Mimouni’s tale would be considered a bit dense were it not for both the characters and the (sometimes) devastating turns they take. It helps that nearly every plot turn The Apartment takes is near perfect, filled with passion, and aided by a collection of elegant and intoxicating camera movements.
Ultimately, The Apartment is about the illusion and fantasy of the past never really leaving us and reminding its audience that no matter how hard we try, we’re never able to truly escape it. It helps that Paris serves as the perfect romantic playground for all these events to take place. With multiple vantage points from the different characters (each one with a multitude of secrets all their own), Paris once again proves an ideal noir city. It helps that the Paris of The Apartment is the Paris of the 90s, the era where the city of lights felt like a wonderland with its architecture, interior design, and especially in the romantic curiosity of the people who lived there. It’s the landscape that’s responsible for the almost dreamlike state that the film is in, a state which the audience finds themselves in too as not only the spirit of French noir from the 60s is resurrected, but is done so in one of the most stylish and almost mystical international films of the decade.
Victims of Sin is now available on Blu-ray and DVD from The Criterion Collection. The Apartment is now available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber.
