Noir City so far: Panique was the best so far, a genuine masterpiece, and quite resonant in our time of intolerance, twitter mobs, etc. The Argentine film of The Beast Must Die was terrific as well, a fine bit of film making with many scenes and images I won't soon forget. Razzia is famous, and highly enjoyable, though also just a bit silly (and the marijuana den scene is really... something else.) Le Doulos is beautifully shot and conceived, a deconstructed crime story which feels much more New Wave than Noir. Best moment of the festival so far was in Le Doulos, when Jean-Paul Belmondo, having inflicted some rather severe violence on a pal's girlfriend to extract information, picks up the drink she'd just made him and takes a sip that is so casual and insouciant that it elicited a bit of laugher from the crowd. A lady in the audience dourly scolded: THAT'S ... NOT .... FUNNY! Eliciting a whole lot more laughter. It became a sort of running gag between Dina and me (and others in the audience that I heard) to whisper "that's not funny" randomly at non sequitur moments through the rest of the film, a joke which I imagine will live for at least a while. We have fun. This being San Francisco, there was here and there some hissing at politically incorrect stuff in these movies, though nowhere near what you usually get. Most people who go to see French crime films at a Film Noir festival presumably know what they're getting into, informedly consenting to witnessing some violence, some bad people doing bad things and not being very nice about it, etc. Anyway, I'd recommend Le Doulos. It's a clever film and many bits of it are, indeed, rather funny; and Belmondo is a a marvel. Korean films tonight. THAT'S... NOT... FUNNY... http://www.noircity.com/nc18p1.html #film #political_correctness_gone_mad #minds