‘Police Python 357’ or — A Particularly Playful Pickle?
Police Inspector Marc Ferrot (Yves Montand) is in a bit of a predicament. A young Italian woman has been murdered in her apartment and Ferrot and his team are assigned to the case. The only problem is the young woman (Stefania Sandrelli) was Ferrot’s secret lover and the last anyone saw of her was when the two were arguing outside her building. Not only that but, after sneaking into her apartment to leave a note of apology whilst oblivious to the fact her dead body is lying in the next room, Ferrot was the last person at the scene of the crime. The result? Ferrot ends up investigating himself, as well as having to discover the identity of the real killer before he takes the fall for a crime he didn’t commit. Oh no!
As you might suspect, ‘Police Python 357’ (1976) is a spin on Kenneth Fearing’s 1946 novel ‘The Big Clock’ with a healthy dose of ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971) mixed-in for good measure. Yet although everything we’ve seen here we’ve seen before what distinguishes director Alain Corneau’s take on this explicitly pulpy material is his cooking and serving up of the visual information we need to stitch everything together, and the way he does that is utterly mesmerising.
This is most notable during the meticulously crafted murder sequence where previously presumed inconsequential moments of random incident — a dropped glove, an accidentally stepped on dog’s paw — suddenly become monumentously threatening in their meaning.
There’s a shot where we observe the killer leaving the victim’s apartment and Corneau lingers on the closing door that plunges the room into total darkness for a fraction of a second longer than expected. Why? So the darkness can then be sliced by a sliver of light as the door gently swings back open again. The killer had neglected to close it properly. The effect? We’re now watching the screen, and everything on it, like a bloody hawk.
This also gives Corneau’s film a chilly sense of humour but it’s a humour arising from the clashing and juxtaposition of contrasting images more than anything else (this is one of the few films I know where the comedy is generated not so much from the dialogue or situations but from the editing). These edits can be hard and severe so we frequently shift from the profane to the sacred, youth to middle-age, light to dark, silence to noise. We’re undeniably being toyed with but Corneau knows how to tickle us to exactly the right extent before we want to throw him off from over-stimulation.
Also, despite its explosive sounding title, ‘Police Python 357’ isn’t as action heavy as other 70’s cop thrillers such as ‘Magnum Force’ (1973) or Italy’s poliziotteschi genre, preferring instead to keep the audience hooked by the rhythm of unfolding events. Until the final twenty minutes, that is, when all hell breaks loose (this film contains possibly the best, and most shocking, example of someone-getting-crushed-between-two-vehicles I’ve ever seen).
‘Police Python 537’ is a wonderful slice of French pulp that’s dripping with style and a finely tuned wit. It might homage/parody/pastiche various pre-existing sources but it’s executed with such an idiosyncratic flair it’s distinctively its own unique beast. Cinematography is frequently gorgeous, there’s an unnerving score by Georges Delerue and even though Montand is great as Ferrot it’s Simone Signoret who steals the show as a bed-ridden puppet master.
This is my first experience of Alain Corneau but if his other work is as mischievously icy as this then I can’t wait to see more.
