Monsieur Verdoux
Let’s try forget that this is a Charlie Chaplin movie. Especially at the beginning, without Chaplin’s Tramp character “Monsieur Verdoux” feels like anybody could have written and starred in it. The story itself is much more serious and overtly realistic than “A King in New York”, the only other Chaplin movie I know which does not feature the Tramp, and cinematography and style just feel so not like Chaplin. But the bittersweet black comedy elements cannot be unseen, or the way Chaplin uses a lot of pantomime and body language to get the comedy across. It’s a film that feels so different from everything Chaplin yet you cannot get him out of your mind.
For the first hour at least, “Monsieur Verdoux” is funny, deep and beautifully written. I was quite smitten with the premise of the film, and I loved the way Verdoux was moving throughout life, with a sarcastic mouth but a lot of love in his heart. Whereas typical Chaplin films only have rather one-dimensional characters, this is perhaps his only film with some really great side characters. Annabelle is amazing and even Lydia is quite wonderfully characterized. I am not surprised that Chaplin calls this his best movie, you can feel how much work has been put into this film, like the Coens with “Miller’s Crossing”.
Later on, I was actually quite a bit confused. So… he didn’t “lose” his wife and child by killing them, didn’t he?
I also think that this was actually Chaplin’s most personal film. His relationships with women – I am surprised nobody has made a movie out of this. The Wikipedia section listing his relationships reads like a black comedy itself. Almost every cliché is in it – the first (true?) love at young age, several divorce fights, rumored affairs, a short but highly publicized love story with another famous actress, relationships which turned into friendship, and finally one last wife who he spent the rest of his life with, though it took him 30 years of amorous escapades to find her.
On a less bright side note, I find Chaplin’s later talkie movies strangely painful. In “A King of New York”, for the longest time I thought Chaplin’s character was in an incredible distress because didn’t realize how absurd the film was. As a result, I almost panicked and thought that he’ll ever get out of that mess – which he did, in the most amusing way. Perhaps a re-watch of the film, knowing exactly how it will end, will help me get over that case. “Monsieur Verdoux” is even worse – you know exactly that Verdoux must fail, get arrested and so on, and it is not funny but just painful to wait, and wait for when he will fail. It is great that one cares so much for these Chaplin characters (as always!), but on a personal level, I find it hard to enjoy the comedy under such circumstances.
I am not sure if I agree with Charlie Chaplin’s sentimental vision of life, and I thought the second half of the film felt a little dragging at times, but I too agree that this is one of Chaplin’s masterpieces.