La lune dans le caniveau aka The Moon In The Gutter (1983) French Twilight Zone Neo Noir Nightmare

"A real visual treat!" (Noirsville)

"Don't look for sense in these things Nightmares don't make sense " (Eddie Muller referring to all of Cornell Woolrich's Nightmare Noir - ASK EDDIE - August 3 2023)

Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, Betty Blue). Written by Jean-Jacques Beineix & Olivier Mergault and based on the novel The Moon In The Gutter by David Goodis.

The excellent Cinematography was by by Philippe Rousselot.  Music was by Gabriel Yared. 

The film stars Gérard Depardieu (The Last Metro, Green Card, Maigret) as Gérard Delmas, Nastassja Kinski (One From The Heart, Paris, Texas) as Loretta Channing, Victoria Abril (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels) as Bella, Bertice Reading as Lola. Gabriel Monnet as Tom, Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen, Amélie, The City Of The Lost Children) as Frank, Milena Vukotic as Frieda, Vittorio Mezzogiorno as Newton Channing, Bernard Farcy as Jésus, Anne-Marie Coffinet as Dora, Katya Berger as Catherine, Jacques Herlin as Guido Alberti. 

Nastassja Kinski as Loretta

 Gérard Depardieu as Gérard Delmas 

Victoria Abril as Bella

Vittorio Mezzogiorno as Newton Channing

Dominique Pinon as Frank

Bertice Reading as Lola

. Gabriel Monnet as Tom

Here's another Noir Lovers wet dream. The visuals are mesmerizing. Beineix juxtaposes the magical realist Cinecittà Studio narrow, claustrophobic ghetto sets, with the sweeping location visuals of the port of Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. A Neo Noir color pallet of carnal reds, puke yellows, dead body blues, dry bone whites, intestine greens, contrasted with back and highlighted with neon dominates the Cinecittà sets. 

Surprisingly there's a scene that will remind you of Sin City, right at the get go, and not surprisingly there is a nod to Giallos. 

Luc Bresson (Subway, Nikita, The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, Lucy), Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl), and Bieneix were part of a "cinema du look" movement that sprouted in France during the eighties. Their films tended to distill the narrative down to the barest essence while enhancing the visual story. Look at it like the difference between a novel and a graphic novel. In the film the Visuals are emphasized and often supplemented by the Music. 

Almost everything you know about Gérard is found out through his interactions with his girlfriends and neighbors, through voice over and flashbacks. He is your classic obsessed and alienated Noir individual. Obsessed with finding the man who raped his sister. 

Bella is his wild girlfriend who loves him deeply, and Loretta is the mysterious noir femme from the world of the "haves" who appears in his life.  

I've seen Beineix's Diva and Betty Blue long ago (probably on VHS tape which was, back then, like really not seeing any widescreen film like it was meant to be seen), and I barely remember them. I do remember Diva was well received and Betty Blue was controversial. We all should probably check those out again and see if Beineix tapped even more into the Visual Noir vein. Supposedly the original cut of this film ran to four hours.

The credits are over a full Moon nightscape. Blood red clouds begin to drift across the moon. At the end superimposed over the screen are the following words

“We were born in the gutter, in the water the stars were mirrored” 

Le narrateur V.O.: In the port of nowhere in the middle of the docks district, at the end of an alley, a man used to come every night to escape his memories. 

Flashback

We cut to the gutter. Where the pavement meets concrete curbing. A fast moving rivulet of runoff is racing away towards a storm drain. 

The camera floats inches above the torrent, and like a salmon, swims up stream. We sinuously follow the curves of the old street, pass through patches of neon glow. 

We hear the clicking of high heels on pavement. We follow a woman's feet as she walks the narrow sidewalk. Her name is Catherine and her pace picks up as she hears someone following her. 

We get a shot of light saddle tan boots, then the white heels, cuts go back and forth increasing in speed. The woman following the track of a street railway makes a turn into wye track with a dead end. 

We cut to Catherine's body. She lays on he back in a ruffled white dress on the side walk. Her garter belt is still holding up her torn white stockings, a high heel lays upright forlornly nearby. 

She has red nail polish on her fingernails. On the wrist of the hand laying across her belly she wears a cartoon Pluto wristwatch. It's 10:15. It took a licking and keeps on ticking. In Catherine's other outstretched hand she holds the pearl handled straight razor that she apparently cut her own throat with.

 (This reminded me of the rape sequence in For A Few Dollars More, Mortimer's sister commits suicide there also while being raped).  

The blood from her wound has coursed from her throat across the sidewalk to pool in the gutter. The Moon is reflected in the blood.  

The blood from her wound has coursed from her throat across the sidewalk to pool in the gutter. The Moon is reflected in the blood.  

 (This reminded me of the rape sequence in For A Few Dollars More, Mortimer's sister commits suicide there also while being raped).  

The blood from her wound has coursed from her throat across the sidewalk to pool in the gutter. The Moon is reflected in the blood.  

We cut to the present.  Gérard is standing over the spot they found his sister. 

Le narrateur V.O.: Seven months had gone by and many moons had risen in the dark sky. They never caught the rapist. It was a closed case and nobody even remembered.  |Yet... He thought of that night his sister Catherine had died there. He thought of innocence. She had been raped. She had killed herself. And he night after night, nothing being powerful enough to stop him from doing so, would come back there. He had only one idea in his mind: to find who the rapist was, to stop the carousel that took his freedom away from him, It will never go away. 

Here we see the blood assume a "Sin City" like, ethereal red glow.  The red glow of the blood, as Rod Serling used to say, is our signpost to the Twilight Zone. We are in his nightmare.

The Sin City-ish glow

Gérard still sees the blood in the gutter. Into the alley comes Frank an obvious alkie, "brother" Gérard  calls him. Is Frank really his brother? or is he a "brother" a "bro" drinking buddy? Frank puts the touch on Gérard for 500. 

Frank gazing down at "the spot"

Afterwards, Gérard heads to The Mikado, a waterfront dive bar that tonight has topless female wrestling contest. The place is a shit hole. It's crowded with dockworkers, shipyard laborers, sailors.

The wrestling contestants are hookers. They are two of the regular Mikado "B" girls. There in the Mikado, Gérard meets Newton Channing. 

Newton Channing's ice gnawing contest

Channing's another alkie, but an alkie from upper class. An alkie with cash. We watch Newton conducting am impromptu game. He betting any takers that they cannot gnaw their way through a block of ice. He's competing with the wrestlers but the management doesn't care, and the wrestlers are watching Newton's game. Gérard plays the game and wins.

When Gérard goes to the crapper he runs into Frank again. Frank was peeping on one of the hooker / wrestlers showering off after her bout in a combo Turkish squat toilet / shower stall with the door open.  He got quite the eyeful before she sees him. These toilets are called "toilettes à la turque."

The hooker yelles at Frank and pushed the wooden door shut. 

It's occupied

Gérard gets rid of Frank pushes the stall door back open. He questions the hooker about Newton Channing. She tells Gérard that Newton likes to come down to waterfront to play the games he can't play with rich friends. She thinks he's weird and doesn't like himself. 

She tells Gérard that Newton likes to come down to waterfront to play the games he can't play with rich friends. She thinks he's weird and doesn't like himself. 

The alienated Gérard finds some kinship in alienated Newton. Newton tells him that he lives with his sister Loretta in a big house in the upper town. He also mentions that Loretta had to knock him out with a stiletto shoe when he tried to slowly burn down the house. (We find out that Newton was driving a bit to fast one night with his parents in the car when he crashed and burned.  He got thrown clear  his parents got fried.) 

At about closing time, lights flash the windows of the The Mikado and we here the deep throated rumble of a sports car. It stops outside The Mikado. 

We get our first look at Loretta when she peers over the bottom frosted half of the bar's window glass  looking for Newton. 

For Gérard, you get the impression that it's either love at first site or Loretta reminds him an awful lot of Catherine. 

It starts going even more Noirsville for Gérard when Bella starts getting jealous.

Noirsville

<Spoilers>

We get strands of the original four hour film that are so vivid that you surmise using your imagination, what the original storyline maybe was. For instance you can tell that there are still pieces of the longer film remaining in the final Gaumont studio release. For instance, in the opening scene we are focused on the gutter view, we see the girls heels and the chasing man's boot's. The boots are a distinctive light saddle tan brown. 

Later on we see a stream of stevedores walking out of the dock warehouses at the end of a day heading home after work. They pass just behind Gérard and Loretta and we get a quick zoom into the crowd zeroing in on the same pair of saddle tan boots. 

Frank the drunk, extrudes sleaze, he gets extremely nervous when ever Gérard questions him. Could he be the sexually deviant rapist? Frank, however looks like he doesn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  If he had a pair of saddle tan boots, he would have hocked them for hooch long ago. He also has a limp, our rapist didn't. We get another shot of drunk Frank laying on the floor with photos of Catherine strewn about his head. Frank apparently had a thing for Catherine.

There may be more shots / clues to find there. You get the idea that maybe the longer version may have had more of a resolution to the murder. Did this final studio release version require the "nightmare" compromise?, or was it intended to be even more labyrinthic?

We get a montage of Gérard and Catherine together watching the sun set, watching the moon rise doing other things together. You are not sure what was originally being alluded to. Is it a heathy brother sister relationship or something more twisted? 

Another sequence has Gérard getting his hand caught under a cable while loading a cargo ship. He's in the hospital with a bandaged hand and gets a visit from Catherine. Catherine has gotten all dressed up in white to please Gérard. But Gérard asks why she's dressed like a whore? We see her go running out of the hospital in the same clothes we see her in at the opening sequence in the film. So is it that what's got Gérard all screwed up? Does he blame himself for what happened? Is it another nightmare? 

Other sequences with Loretta display the same dreamlike qualities. There's even a dream within this dreamlike film where Gérard is in a morgue. There is a corpse on a table covered with a sheet. We assume its Catherine. But then Gérard lifts the end of the sheet and flips it three quarters over exposing the naked body up to her breasts. He runs his hand from her feet up her thighs over her pubes then to her breasts. Twisted, no? but when he flips the sheet off the head and we are expecting to see a slit throat its Loretta laying on the table rather than Catherine.

Loretta also has a habit of showing up like a Goddess en Machina, at opportune times in the film and the "machina" is a really cool fire red 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California, that "roars".

Jean-Jacques Beineix made one beautiful Nightmare of a Noir, Bravo! 9/10. The screencaps above barely even begin to give you a good impression moving / fluid shots, the directors cut might have been a 10 /10.

Very surprising film between the unreal and the dramatic tale. It's dark, black, dirty atmosphere. Around an old port, a filthy bar, a bright moon, a dead end with a stain of blood that has remained for months and at the end a murder, an unsolved murder that upsets the genius Depardieu in the role of the brother who is devastated by the death of his sister. This film is brilliant, the best of Beneix. The cast to the height, a solid scenario. Pinon is excellent in his disturbing, voyeur role .... I loved it.

mickael l. (Allocine.fr)

A film that really stuck with me in its first part. It's a film with a very cold beauty, with its sticky and dirty atmosphere, which really made me think of a Sin City before its time. The work on the sets is truly remarkable, Beineix plays brilliantly with his camera. Unfortunately in its second part one or two scenes ring false and made me get out of the fascination it generated in me at the beginning, with also a music too present at times. But despite that I loved it.

Roub E. (Allocine.fr)

La Lune dans le Caniveau. J.J. Beinex. 1983

« Nous sommes nés dans le caniveau, dans l’eau se mirent les étoiles ». L’histoire commence dans le « port de nulle part », où un homme, Gérard Delmas (Gérard Depardieu), tente d’échapper au souvenir de sa soeur Catherine qui s’est suicidée à la suite d’un viol dans une sordide impasse, depuis maculée d’une tache de sang indélébile. « Dans le port de nulle part, dans le quartier des docks, au fond d’une impasse, un homme venait tout les soirs pour tenter d’échapper à sa mémoire ». Cherchant à démasquer le violeur, Gérard écume les bars. C’est là où, à la suite d’une rencontre avec un homme de la « haute ville », Newton Channing (Vitorio Mezzogiorno), venu se perdre dans les bas-fonds, apparaît Loretta (Natassja Kinski), dont elle est la soeur. Aux premiers regards échangés, Gérard et Loretta tombent éperdument amoureux l’un de l’autre. Loretta, icône de grâce et de lumière, femme fatale, sublime, angélique, élégante, douce, à la fois éthérée et sensuelle, illumine le monde de ténèbres où vit Gérard, prisonnier de sa condition, de son histoire, de la rue. Il résiste à ses sentiments, car l’idée de retrouver le violeur de sa sœur pour le châtier le hante, mais aussi par la peur que lui inspire Loretta, pure, inaccessible. Gérard finit par succomber à la passion qui le brûle et demande à Loretta de ne partir jamais. Ils se marient dans la Cathédrale de l’Espoir durant une nuit de pleine lune, lors d’une scène irréelle, féerique. Après avoir bu plus que de raison, Loretta attend Gérard, parti prendre ses affaires pour vivre avec elle, devant sa maison du 7 rue de l’Océan. Il quitte sa maîtresse Bella (Victoria Abril), femme charnelle, mais reste prisonnier du port de nulle part. Loretta pleure. Le dernier plan met en scène une affiche publicitaire devant la maison de Gérard où figure les mots "try another world", au double sens, invitation à la rédemption, et leurre d’un paradis artificiel, avec une bouteille d’alcool à la dérive.

La Lune dans le Caniveau marque une approche nouvelle, une rupture dans le cinéma : la fin de l’histoire comme objet du fim, à l’instar de la révolution impressionniste où l’image cessa d’être la fin de l’œuvre picturale pour le céder à l’émotion. Deux thèmes principaux traversent et animent cette œuvre magistrale de Beinex, la fatalité tragique qui empêche Gérard d’échapper à sa condition, de rejoindre Loretta et d’oublier le souvenir du sang de Catherine dans l’impasse - « tu es d’ici » dit Bella à Gérard - et la rédemption par l’amour, incarnée par Loretta - « il n’y a pas de fatalité au malheur », dit Loretta à Gérard. Le classicisme du premier s’oppose tout le long du film avec le romantisme du second, et les émotions qui surgissent avec violence des images, des sons, de la musique, des contrastes, de la lumière et de l’obscurité sont générées par ce conflit fondamental, mais peut-être pas irréductible. La passion qui surgit au premier regard échangé entre Loretta et Gérard n’est elle pas aussi inexplicable et irrésistible que l’amour qui naît entre Tristan et Yseult après avoir bu à la coupe du destin ? En ce sens n’est-il pas tragique au sens grec, au sens du théâtre racinien de ce mot ? Mais Loretta est aussi et surtout rédemptrice, elle est la porte vers la Lumière. Elle déclare tendrement à Gérard après lui avoir arraché son premier baiser « il y aura du bleu dans ton ciel, une route infinie vers le soleil ». Des thèmes secondaires éclairent également l’œuvre, tels la dualité féminine, angélique avec Catherine et Loretta, charnelle avec Bella, la maîtresse de Gérard, très baudelairienne, et le reflet de la lune dans le caniveau, du soleil sur le fleuve, au fond très platonicien.

Quant au style, puisqu’il s’agit ici de l’essentiel, Beinex filme d’abord et avant tout des images d’un esthétisme rare, avec des plans en mouvement permanent qui suggèrent et soulignent les relations entre les personnages, des ambiances, des émotions. Les dialogues ne sont plus au service d’une histoire dont l’image serait une simple illustration, l’histoire n’est plus la colonne vertébrale du film, elle est transcendée par l’image, par la forme qui se suffisent en elles-mêmes pour révéler l’émotion. Les dialogues épurés sont fidèles à l’oeuvre de Goodis. Mais les plus importants sont non verbaux, tels les regards de la caméra et des personnages. Le regard de Loretta est transperçant, émouvant, poignant, d’une intensité rare. Il est l’amour rédempteur. Celui de Gerard traduit son déchirement, son tourment intérieur. Il est la fatalité tragique. Les personnages se déplacent selon une véritable chorégraphie, la sortie de Loretta de sa Ferrari rouge pour son premier rendez-vous avec Gérard est sublime de beauté, de grâce, d’élégance, de promesse et d’espoir. Les voix se répondent et se mêlent tels un chant choral. La scène de la première rencontre entre Gérard et Loretta, en présence de son frère, semble être un chœur. La scène entre l’homme qui aimait en secret Catherine, sœur de Gérard, et Gérard comporte une sorte de récitatif baroque, Gérard ponctuant d’un « t’aurais du lui dire » chacune des raisons que donne l’homme pour avoir observé le silence. Ceci donne à la scène un caractère dramatique, très noir, où le remord le dispute à l’impuissance. La Lumière joue également un rôle essentiel, d’abord par son absence, qui permet de donner une intensité particulière à ses apparitions sur les visages des personnages, ensuite par ce qu’elle permet de révéler, de suggérer ou de laisser dans l’ombre. Dans la scène où Gérard, qui vient d’épouser Loretta, s’effondre ivre mort sur le sol de sa maison avec une statue de la Vierge dans sa main, l’aube éclaire son œil clos alors qu’une verte fluorescence émane de la statuette. Les couleurs et les contrastes participent à l’ambiance du film. Loretta est d’abord vêtue de blanc, d’un blanc immaculé, car elle est l’ange de Lumière qui passe dans l’univers de désolation qu’est le port de nulle part. Elle conduit une Ferrari rouge. Elle porte ensuite une robe rouge lorsqu’elle vient à la rencontre de Gérard sur les docks pour le photographier. Elle est vêtue de blanc dans la scène où elle avoue son amour à Gérard, qui porte costume noir et chemise blanche, et lors de la scène finale, où elle incarne l’ange de la rédemption. La lune, le sang. La lumière, l’amour. L’éthéré, l’incarné. Le vaporeux, le sensuel. La musique de Yared, l’orchestre de cet « opéra d’images » selon les mots mêmes de Beinex, épouse les plans en mouvement, sublime les regards des personnages en répondant à leur intensité dramatique, donne le ton des scènes, tels des leitmotivs. Le leitmotiv de Loretta exprime la lumière, l’amour, l’espoir. Dans le thème de l’enfance où se révèle l’amour qui unissait Gérard à sa sœur, se distinguent quelques notes du thème de Loretta. Quoi d’étonnant pour évoquer ces deux femmes pures qui ne sont pas du port de nulle part ? Chorégraphie, littérature, musique, peinture, poésie s’unissent pour donner naissance à ce film. La Lune dans le Caniveau est une œuvre poétique, romantique, symboliste où la musique, les couleurs et les sons se répondent, marquant son universalité et sa singularité.

Eric Seassaud