LOCARNO 2024 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!! Decades after his passing, filmmakers have tried to make crime as cool as Jean-Pierre Melville did in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s easier said than done, though, as most that attempt it can’t replicate his success at his peak. Christoph Hochhäusler’s La Mort viendra (Death Will Come) is the latest film to bring the Melville aesthetic to bear on modern audiences. The trench coats and fedoras may be gone, but the film is still centered on various ne’er-do-wells slinking around Europe’s criminal underground.
The film’s narrative is a labyrinth of shady dealings and double crossings, to be expected in a work of this ilk. Tez (Sophie Verbeeck) is an assassin for hire, tasked by criminal mastermind Mahr (the ever-sinister Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) to find out why his courier Yann was killed after a botched shipment of money. A rival crime boss, seeking to change the sex worker industry through the introduction of lifelike dolls and VR headsets, is suspected to be behind the hit. Suffice it to say that this is not a group you’d want to bring home to Mom.
The bones are definitely in place for a moody crime film. The steely grey skies, wet streets, and somber soundtrack certainly add an atmosphere akin to that of Le Samouraï. The similarities end there. Delon’s character was largely an empty canvas, allowing the audience to inhabit his coolness as he interacted with a corrupt world. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same connection with the characters here.
“A rival crime boss… is suspected to be behind the hit.”
With the exception of the beguiling and stylish Tez (Veerbeck shines) and a blind madame wise beyond her years, the characters are banal. Evil and grimy, sure, but nothing we’ve seen before, and we genuinely don’t have much investment into what happens to these people. Bad people doing bad things isn’t enough — they need personality, and that’s sorely missing in La Mort viendra. Hochhäusler keeps us at a remove from his cast of slimy crooks, and while that may have been a conscious choice, it probably wasn’t the right one. There is an attempt to add a more human side to the actions of Mahr, but it falls flat.
Atmosphere is king in La Mort viendra, and there’s undeniably an appeal to its glistening roadways and sleek criminality. In 2024, that’s just not enough when it’s in service of a clunky narrative filled with too many threads. There are a lot of ideas, but they should have been pared down to better fit within the confines of a feature-length production. The various entanglements feel dense enough to warrant a miniseries.
This will have an audience, because La Mort viendra embraces the coolness of classic films. It harkens back to European crime dramas from years past while infusing them with some modern sensibilities and more visceral action. But it’s ultimately a case of style over substance, and the best crime films manage to make both ends meet. Fans waiting for the next Melville will have to wait.
La Mort viendra screened at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival.
"…an appeal to its glistening roadways and sleek criminality..."
