The French word ‘Rififi’ doesn’t really have an English translation
accurately befitting the meaning of the word, but rough approximations include
fisticuffs, fighting, brawling, trouble and action. All of these are featuring
heavily in American exile Jules Dassin’s Rififi, among the greatest of
cinematic crime films, and certainly the greatest of the heist film subgenre.
Also a fine example of film noir, although much discussion is made about the
central heist sequence (which carried a degree of notoriety for a number of
years, due to criminals re-enacting the methods used by the characters), the
film as a whole is an engaging exercise in immaculate pacing. Notwithstanding
the excitement of the film itself, part of the reason the film catches the
viewer in that way is because it features such a well-developed diegesis. The
characters (so strong on paper and superbly portrayed by the cast) inhabit a
decadent, vibrant and at times bleakly brutal world in which you can literally
feel a sense of griminess permeating through the screen. Through the cinematic
methods of the camera, the montage and the music, we the audience also must
bath in this world, but that’s not a problem when you’re totally with the
characters in this dark exploration of the human heart. Francois Truffaut once
described this as “the best crime film I’ve ever seen.” He might well be right.
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