Wrong Turn. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...

There's Dark cinema and there's dark cinema.

The term Film Noir was originally applied to American cinema in 1946, and seems to have been used by two French film critics at more or less the same time.

The critic Nico Frank described a recent batch of American imports as "belong[ing] to what used to be called the detective film genre, but which would now be better termed the crime, or, even better yet, the "crime psychology film." 

Fellow critic Jean-Pierre Chartier was less charitable in his take on the subject, condemning what he called Film Noir's "pessimism and disgust for humanity."

It is Chartier's take on Noir that feels most relevant to this week's film, although personally I would challenge the value judgement implied by his attacks. One of the characteristics of the "dark cinema" of this era was that it didn't necessarily need to have anything to do with crime. Or sex.

It's possible to have a Very Bad Day for entirely other reasons.

Detour tells the story of  Al Roberts, a down-on-his-luck pianist who tries to hitch-hike his way across the country to join his girlfriend in California.

Things do not go well.

In many of the iconic films noir, the protagonist falls in love with the wrong girl, or gets mixed up with the wrong crowd (sometimes thanks to the wrong girl). Their lifestyle choices may be unwise, and they might be sealing their fate, but they generally do it for the gratification. They want the money. The power. The dame.

In Detour, Roberts gets into the wrong car.

Detour is not a crime caper. There is no femme fatale (although there is definitely a "girl"). 

But Detour is quite possibly one of the most nihilistic films to come out of Hollywood during this particular era.

Made on a virtually non-existent budget, Detour is a film that tells its story almost exclusively with light and shadow.

I said last week that many film noir protagonists bring their fate upon themselves. They set themselves on a path that is only ever going to take them to one possible outcome.

Roberts doesn't rob a bank or hold up an armoured car (that's coming in a few weeks!) and he doesn't murder anyone for the insurance money (ditto). He finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there is nothing he can do to free himself from the course of events that take over his life.

One of the most striking aspects of Detour (apart from its general air of fatalism) is how little action there is throughout. As its title suggests, Roberts starts himself down a path from which he cannot deviate, and there is nothing for him to do but be swept along.

Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. The whole sky has fallen on you, and all you can do about it is to shout. Don't mistake me, I said "shout": I did not say groan, whimper, complain. That, you cannot do. [...] In melodrama, you argue and struggle in the hope of escape. That is vulgar; it's practical. But in tragedy, where there is no temptation to try to escape, argument is gratuitous.

Jean Anouilh; Antigone (premiered one year before the release of Detour)

Detour may not have been a big-budget blockbuster, and it may not have featured any big-name stars, but it captures (perhaps more starkly than any other film of the time) that specific mindset that had so caught the attention of the French film critics when they saw the latest batch of American films.

Whatever else Detour may be, it is pure Noir.

We will screen Detour at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 23rd of January at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.