La Bête Humaine

6/20/2022

I have to be honest and say that I was quite underwhelmed by this. Whilst Jean Renoir has certainly produced a beautifully gritty film that evokes a genuine sense of how life on the French Chemin de fer might have been in the late 1930s', this left me feeling that a great deal had been lost between the book and the screen... "Roubeau" is a forty something railway conductor who has a much, much younger wife. When he discovers that she has had an affair with her godfather, he forces her to arrange a meeting on his (moving) train and kills him. Whilst not actually witnessed by fellow railway worker "Jacques Lantier" (another strong performance from Jean Gabin); he saw them leave the compartment and he covers for them at the subsequent enquiry - he, too has fallen for her! Though there are dou