Le Deuxième souffle (Second Breath) (1966)

this is definitely one of those hiest films that needs to be seen more than once. the film bears the usual complexity of a melville creation, but with sometimes the lack of clarity of the few films he made that rank slightly higher than this one. the only downside to the film is the early overuse of the macguffin tactic, but overall the final 90 minutes of the film come together impressively to create the brilliance of a film i know i will rewatch many times. the hiest sequence was among the best in film history, and with some slight choice differences early on this film could have flirted with masterpiece status.

this is just the kind of stuff i love. melville's earlier films are more gritty and realistic than the highly stylized stuff he made later and this was made one year before le samourai. and it may be the best melville i've seen yet. i know a 2 1/2 hour long heist film doesn't do it for everyone but this is outstanding and criminally underseen judging by flixster ratings. one of the few french films to really rival the classic american films in this genre