DbcultAccessing Vault...
Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you stumble across a copy of Adieu les copains, don't expect some hidden masterpiece. It is really only worth your time if you are obsessed with early French talkies or want to see Joë Hamman looking uncomfortable in a suit. 🎥
Anyone looking for a snappy plot or decent sound design will absolutely hate this. It is creaky, slow, and the dialogue sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can.
The plot is pretty thin, mostly focusing on a group of buddies dealing with some heavy post-war drama. Léo Joannon directs himself here, which is always a slightly risky move.
He spends a lot of time looking intensely at the camera, trying to look deep. It doesn't quite work, but you have to admire the sheer confidence of the man.
There is this one scene in a dusty office where Bonaventura Ibáñez just stares at a letter for what feels like three whole minutes. I actually checked my watch. ⌚
Nothing happens. He just sighs, folds the paper, and then the scene just... ends.
It reminded me a bit of the slow, silent-era drag you get in older films like Marizza, where directors were still figuring out how to fill space. Here, they have sound, but everyone still behaves like they are in a silent movie.
If you know French film history, you know Hamman was their big Western star. Seeing him in this gloomy, static drama is just plain weird.
He has this nervous energy, like he is waiting for someone to bring him a horse. 🐴
In one scene, he grabs the back of a wooden chair so hard I thought it was going to split. He just stands there holding it while Marc Dantzer delivers a very long, very dry speech about honor.
Honestly, the audio quality is so bad in this print that I missed half of what Dantzer was even saying.
If you liked the heavy melodrama in Captain of His Soul, you might find some charm in the sheer clunkiness of this. But for most people, it is just a historical curiosity.
It is a movie to put on when you want to fall asleep on a rainy Sunday afternoon. 🌧️
