Judex

The corrupt banker Favraux is threatened by someone who will not give a name: return what you stole or die. At a ball he gives, the man collapses. His daughter starts looking for the truth, and the figure behind it turns out to be a masked dispenser of justice calling himself Judex. Georges Franju directed, from Louis Feuillade's silent serial of 1916. Franju built the adaptation not as nostalgia but as a formal experiment: he kept the attitude of silent cinema while making a sound film, and abandoned realism entirely. Its best-known section is the ball. The guests wear bird masks and Judex enters holding a live dove; the scene became one of the most quoted images in cinema. The black and white photography and the rooftop chases continue the visual language of the serial. The narrative logic is weak and deliberately so; the film proceeds like a dream. Who it is for: viewers who like the inheritance of silent cinema and poetic fantasy. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a coherent plot; the film could not care less.