LA FERME DES SEPT PÉCHÉS
Sc.: J. Devaivre, Janine Grégoire, René Méjean. F.: Lucien Joulin. Mu.: Joseph Kosma. Cast: Jacques Dumesnil (Paul Louis Courier), Claude Génia (Herminie), Aimé Clariond (marchese de Siblas), Pierre Renoir (il procuratore), Alfred Adam (Symphorien Dubois), Georges Grey (Pierre Dubois), Pierre Palau (giudice), Arthur Devère (Frémont), Héléna Manson (La Michel), Jacques Dufilho (François), Jean Vilar (l’uomo col cappello grigio), Marcel Pérès (Coupeau). Prod.: Neptune; 35mm. D.: 100’. Bn.
Film Notes
We must sing the praises of Devaivre, an extremely audacious filmmaker who is forgotten today. His films thrill me, from their rapidity of tone, to the way the narration is conducted, fragmented with characters who start talking to the camera right in the middle of a shot. The dialogues by Jean-Paul Le Chanois in La Dame d’onze heures are worthy of Queneau. And La Ferme des sept péchés is a striking investigation on the murder of pamphleteer Paul-Louis Courier, with harsh, powerful staging and several dazzling moments.
Bertand Tavernier, in «L’Evénement du jeudi», 1/4/1993
Jean Devaivre’s second film is original both for its subject and its form. The author’s taste for discontinued, broken, baroque narrative – with overlapping and intricate plot lines shown from different perspectives – is even more evident here than in La Dame d’onze heures, and it is expressed immediately in the construction of the story. While the film enters into the biography tradition, so loved by French cinema in the 40s, its unusual and troubling ambiguity and the enigmatic aspect of its story were unequaled at that time.
Jacques Lourcelles, Dictionnaire du cinéma. Les films, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1992