One Deadly Summer - Sebastian Japrisot

I watched the French film One Deadly Summer starring Isabelle Adjani and it stayed with me. There’s something about that story that doesn’t let go, a quiet unease that lingers long after it ends.

So I looked up the novel of the same name by Sébastien Japrisot.

As you may have known, it's a story of a young girl Elle who seeks revenge on three men that raped her mother years ago in one winter day.

The first half of the novel is very good. The atmosphere is dense, the characters feel real, and the story moves in a direction that promises a lot. There’s that slow, summery feeling with something dark underneath.

But as the novel goes on, it becomes strange. As if it starts to fall apart from within.

It increasingly feels like this is not just a story about one girl, but about a tragedy passed down from generation to generation. Something that cannot be avoided, only repeated.

The saddest part is what happens to Elle. It’s as if she retreats back into childhood, losing touch with reality, until she eventually ends up in a mental institution.

In the end, it feels like everything was predetermined.

Boris Vian - I spit on your graves

The celebrated pataphysician Boris Vian wrote this short, oversexed crime novel, charged with erotic intensity and uncontrolled, almost surrealistic violence.

Beneath the mask of American hard-boiled fiction, Vian exposes the sexual hypocrisy and deeply ingrained racism of American society.
Overall, Vian is an exceptionally fascinating writer: he loved jazz, beautiful women, and provocation, and although he died young, he left behind an impressive and remarkably diverse body of work.

This book still provokes strong reactions today, precisely because it exposes deeply ingrained moral hypocrisy and racism. However, what I find interesting and appealing is what lies beneath the surface layer: a skillfully told crime story, infused with large doses of eroticism and dreamlike narration.

Robin Buss - French Film Noir

A few years ago, I enjoyed discovering what had until then seemed to me an almost unimaginable number of excellent old French crime films. While looking for context and explanations of that world, I came across this book, which presents the evolution of French film noir very clearly and readably — from early black-and-white works up to films of the 1990s.

I particularly liked that the author mentions some of my personal favorites, such as Going Places, Monsieur Hire, The Moon in the Gutter, Rififi, The Beast Must Die, The Clockmaker, Série Noire, L.627, Diva, and Subway. On the other hand, I was somewhat disappointed that in the final list of French noir films, titles like Blood Relatives, La Horse, Grilling, One Deadly Summer, Betty Blue, Deadly Circuit, Beau-Père, Without Apparent Motive, and Trap for Cinderella are not mentioned. Still, this is only a minor criticism of an otherwise very valuable book.

The author convincingly traces the development of French film noir from the 1930s to the 1990s, connecting it to literary influences such as Simenon (though unfortunately authors like Sébastien Japrisot, Jean-Patrick Manchette, and some other important crime writers are not mentioned). The chapter on France under the Vichy regime is particularly interesting, showing how anyone could have been a collaborator with Nazi Germany — even your neighbor — which perfectly suited the claustrophobic feeling of film noir.

The book then follows the post-war period, the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of new directors like Godard, Chabrol, and Melville. While American film noir of the 1940s and 1950s had a strong influence, the author rightly emphasizes that the relationship was mutual, as many elements of American noir actually originated in French traditions, particularly poetic realism.

One of the book’s strengths is its explanation of how French film noir, beyond its remarkable visual style, also served as a critique of society. However, with the advent of television and technological progress, style gradually became an end in itself while content lost weight — as can be clearly seen in films like Luc Besson’s Nikita.

Overall, this is a very valuable book for any admirer of French crime cinema. If you enjoy it, it is also worth taking a look at Andrew Spicer’s European Film Noir, which provides a broader European context.