Thomas l'imposteur (1965)
Directed by Georges Franju

Film Review

Thomas l'imposteur completes a remarkable series of film that director Georges Franju made in the early to mid 1960s, coinciding with the French New Wave and offering a very distinctive alternative vision of cinema that combines the grim reality of life with an alluring dream-like poetry.  Franju first made his mark with the hauntingly grotesque Les Yeux sans visage (1960), undoubtedly the greatest of all French horror films, following this up with an inspired adaptation of François Mauriac's modern novel Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962).  After Judex (1963), a magnificent revamp of the old Louis Feuillade serial, Franju tackled another difficult literary adaptation, this time Jean Cocteau's gently provocative 1923 anti-war novel, Thomas l'imposteur.

Cocteau's novel presented numerous problems for a film adaptation, so it was fortunate that Cocteau was around and willing to lend his services as a screenwriter.  This was to be Jean Cocteau's final contribution to the cinema, as he died not long after completing the screenplay, in October 1963.  Georges Franju was probably the man who was best placed to bring Cocteau's unique vision of the First World War to the screen, the austere poetry of his filmmaking well-suited for the barbed lyricism of Cocteau's prose.  There are scenes in Thomas l'imposteur which a spectactor could well believe were directed by Cocteau himself, and Franju's penchant for vivid imagery makes this the most perfect adaptation of a Cocteau novel not directed by the author himself.  It is fitting that Cocteau's long-term friend and collaborator, Jean Marais, provides the voiceover narration, savouring every syllable of Cocteau's sublime text.  Franju even incorporates three of Cocteau's familiar trademarks into his film - mirrors, the Orphic lyre and stars.

Like the novel before it, Thomas l'imposteur surprises with its scathingly ironic depiction of the First World War.  Whereas many contemporary novels, most notably Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, wallowed in the brutal reality and injustice of the conflict, Cocteau's novel analyses the wilful delusion that allowed the war to endure for so long, despite the horrific human cost.  The vision we now have of the 1914-1918 war is very different to how it was perceived at the time, and it is only after those who participated in it were able to record their experiences, in novels, plays, poems and films, that the now prevailing view gained widespread acceptance.  The First World War, the so-called 'War to End All Wars', was the great adventure of the early 20th century, a lodestone for idealism and patriotism, and a rare opportunity in which anyone, irrespective of his social position, could serve his country by asserting his heroism.  For youthful minds filled with tales of the chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table, there was no greater glory than riding off to battle in the service of one's king and country.

In Cocteau's novel, this delusion is powerfully encapsulated in the central character, Thomas, a 16-year old boy who is so eager to enter the fray that he steals a uniform and pretends to be a commissioned officer.  He is entirely happy in his dream world and has an almost total lack of awareness of the devastation and human suffering that surrounds him.  To him, it is all just a game, and even when he lies dying on the battlefield he still cannot acknowledge the reality of the war.  Thomas is not the only victim of his delusions.  Every other character we encounter appears to have had a reality bypass, in particular the Princess Clemence de Bormes, who regards the war as nothing more than a piece of theatre in which she must act her part, for the approval of her devoted daughter.  The central irony of the novel, palpably rendered in Franju's adaptation, is that Thomas is not the only one who is blind to the absurdity of war and the atrocities of modern warfare.  The whole world seems to have been overtaken by his childish fantasy, completely anaesthetised to the horrible reality of what war entails - the destruction of human life on an industrial scale.

In common with all of Franju's greatest films, Thomas l'imposteur offers a compelling drama punctuated by some extraordinarily striking visual images.  The insane devastation of war is brought home, succinctly and quite modestly, in a few stark shots of buildings being destroyed by fire and artillery, reduced to burned out shells.  We barely get a glimpse of the carnage on the battlefield, but we feel its presence in a brutal shorthand, such as the sequence in which a horse gallops in terror across an urban wasteland, its mane set alight.  The film's poetry is at its most sublime in the final sequence in which Thomas scampers across no man's land, totally oblivious to the fact that his existence could be snuffed out at any moment.  The flares that dance around him like fairy lights lend an unreal poetry to the scene, which is cut dead with shocking brutality the instant that Thomas receives the fatal bullet that ends his game and his life.

Thomas l'imposteur is not only written and directed with immense flair, it is also impeccably well-cast, with Emmanuelle Riva, the star of Franju's previous Thérèse Desqueyroux, once again shining in another complex female role, portraying the Princess Clemence de Bormes as a tragic soul who is a slave to her own delusions.  Making his film debut in the lead role of Thomas is the 17-year-old Fabrice Rouleau, the strikingly handsome son of the distinguished actor of screen and stage, Raymond Rouleau.  Franju turns Fabrice Rouleau's obvious lack of experience and expression to his advantage, so that the central character remains throughout the film an enigma, someone we can never fully engage with, like an autistic little boy wrapped up in his own fantasies.  Rouleau junior did appear in a few films and television series after this but acting was never going to be his metier; instead he found success as a journalist.  After Thomas l'imposteur, a film that failed to receive the recognition it deserved, Franju's career rapidly petered out and much of the director's work was too hastily forgotten.  The recent revival of interest in Franju's films, supported by several DVD releases, provides a long overdue opportunity to reappraise the achievements of one of French cinema's great auteurs.

Film Synopsis

September 1914.  At the start of the First World War, the inhabitants of Paris flee the capital, fearing an impending invasion by German troops.  Princess Clemence de Bormes, a young widow, decides to stay behind and lend her support to the war effort by working as an ambulance driver and converting her private residence into a hospital for wounded soldiers.  One day, a young officer introduces himself to her as Guillaume Thomas de Fontenoy, the nephew of a well-known general.  The princess is immediately won over by the young man and he proves to be invaluable, using his family connection to obtain the papers necessary for the war wounded to be moved to Paris.  However, Thomas is not what he seems.  Too young to be accepted into the army, he borrowed a uniform and has since been passing himself off as an officer, just so that he can participate in the great adventure.  He soon grows tired of his routine duties and manages to get himself redeployed on the front line.  Now his adventure can begin in earnest...