Les Yeux cernés (1964)
Directed by Robert Hossein

Film Review

In common with many of Robert Hossein's directorial efforts, Les Yeux cernés is a film that is stylish, moody and intensely evocative of its period, but disappointingly lacking in substance. Even with the combined acting talents of Hossein, Michèle Morgan and Marie-France Pisier, the film fails to convince, essentially because the plot is so ludicrously transparent that you have to be a comatose dimwit not to work out the identity of the killer and the blackmailer within the first ten minutes.

Like Hossein's earlier (and slightly better) films Les Scélérats (1959) and Le Jeu de la vérité (1961), the surfeit of surface style does not distract us for long from the yawning vacuity of a clockwork narrative that is populated by two-dimensional automata making a poor job of convincing us that they are human beings. The film's only real interest is the imaginative way in which it is shot and edited, which does at least convey a mood of mounting oppression and paranoia, although this would clearly have had much greater impact if more effort had gone into refining the script. Les Yeux cernés is rich in sixties cool of the most superficial kind, but pretty bereft of depth and human interest.

Film Synopsis

When Vollmer, the owner of a sawmill, is shot dead in a small Austrian town, there is no shortage of suspects.  Friedrich, the inspector leading the police investigation, learns that Vollmer, a tough and ruthless man, was hated by just about everyone, including his estranged wife.  Not long after her arrival in the town, Madame Vollmer begins to receive anonymous letters from someone who promises to reveal to her the identity of the killer in exchange for a large sum of money.  The widow immediately feels threatened and confides her fears in her husband's former manager, Franz.  But, Madame Volver's anxiety soon turns to paranoia and she becomes convinced that it is Franz who is her enemy...