Neglected Classics – Rififi

12th March 2012

Review by walt.

When Quentin Tarantino was writing his debut feature Reservoir Dogs, the video store clerk sought inspiration by watching some of the classics of the crime genre, including The Taking of Pelham 123, The Killing and Jules Dassin’s 1955 heist thriller Rififi. Just as Tarantino’s film went on to inspire a generation of filmmakers and spawn a host of imitations, Dassin’s Rififi set the standard to which all other heist films aspired.

Set in the criminal underworld of Paris, Rififi tells the story of Tony le Stephanois, a tired world-weary career criminal, recently released after serving a 5 year prison sentence. The film opens with Tony losing his last few francs in a back room card game. Down on his luck and battling ill health, it’s clear from Tony’s drawn expression that here is a man who’s seen better days and is tired of the hand that life has dealt him. As the barman says “five years inside can mark a man”, and Tony has been well and truly marked by his experiences.

So when a chance arises for Tony to turn his luck around in the form of a planned heist of a jewellery store, he sees the job as his way out. To guys like Tony, crime is not so much a choice as a way of life, an inevitable means to an end – a chance to escape.

Everything about Rififi is masterfully done. The gritty dialogue, dramatic music, atmospheric cinematography and compelling performances all combine to form a classic film noir, which Francois Truffaut referred to as “the best crime film I have ever seen”. The one element that marks the film out above all other films in that genre is the heist scene itself. The sequence begins with each of the men leaving their homes, and ends some 33 minutes later with Tony meeting the others back at the rendez-vous, with the jewels in tow.

What makes this scene all the more remarkable is the fact that not one single word of dialogue is uttered throughout its duration. The only sounds on the soundtrack are those of the men working, as they race against time through the night to break into the jewellery store. It’s a piece of pure cinematic visual storytelling, so perfectly formed that it could exist alone as a compelling short film. No dialogue or fast editing is needed to ramp up the tension. Dassin employs gestures, shadows and torchlight, sweaty brows and Georges Auric’s effective score, to build up the dramatic tension as the men crack the safe and make their escape.

Anyone who shares the belief that the coming of sound, and subsequent reliance on dialogue diluted cinema as a visual form, can take great pleasure in watching how Dassin builds the sequence visually – we are not told, we are shown – a method many modern filmmakers could learn from.

It’s no surprise then that the heist scene has been imitated many times since, most notably in Jean-Pierre Melville’s excellent movie Le Circle Rouge. What is more surprising is the influence over Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, a heist film where we never get to see the heist. Dassin chose to make the scene the centrepiece of his movie, whereas Tarantino played with standard plot conventions by showing us the aftermath, not the action itself. Perhaps having seen Rififi, Tarantino realised he couldn’t improve upon the perfection of Dassin’s scene, and decided to be as equally original by not showing the heist at all.

This film is more than just a robbery scene though. There’s much more here to admire and secure the film’s reputation as a classic. There are some truly shocking moments, such as the scene in which Tony brutally whips his ex-girlfriend with a belt offscreen. The camera focuses on a photo of the couple in happier times, as we hear the beating in the background – with the implied violence left to our own imagination. In contrast there are also lighter touches, such as Jo and Tony playing with Jo’s young son, and Mario and his girlfriend fooling around in the bath. Dassin uses these moments to endear us to his leading characters, so we end up willing them to succeed, despite being on the wrong side of the law. It’s this empathy with Tony and his gang that is the most important element of the film. At its heart Rififi is a tragic human story about desperate men who cannot escape their fate. Like Carlito’s Way and Layer Cake, the last big pay day is an illusion, and any attempt to break free from this criminal life is futile.

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