Silvia Montfort puts on make-up and enters as a curtain rises to reveal a viaduct crossed by the Flèche d’Or train. Franju manages the tour de force of compressing the magic of theatre into a few minutes and letting us know at the same time just what the TNP is about. The train ends up at Avignon. There is no more documentary then, but the revelation of the mystery of tragedy, set within the unreal space of the stage. Lady Macbeth becomes Maria Casarès, as she emerges from the night carrying a torch and whispers her lines about blood on her hands. In other words, Franju has turned his poetics upside-down: no longer focusing on the horror in what is real, he gives us horror within the confines of a performance, which becomes our sole reality.

Freddy Buache, Georges Franju, “Premier Plan”, n. 1, September 1959