Judex: A Very Disappointing Movie
After seeing screenshots of the French movie “Judex” (1963), “Judex” looked like it was going to be surreal and artsy and something really special. The costumes, setting, and cinematography all exquisitely depict wealth and glamor even in black-and-white. However, despite appearances, “Judex” glosses over many important details and leaves behind an unsatisfactory movie-watching experience.
The beginning of the movie hurls as many events as possible to the viewer and fails to create an immersive plot: A wealthy man named Favraux (Michel Vitold) is blackmailed by someone calling himself Judex (Channing Pollock) to renounce his villainy or face death. He hires a detective (Jacques Jouanneau) as protection for a masquerade party he’s hosting to celebrate his daughter Jacqueline’s (Édith Scob) engagement. Unbeknownst to him, Diana (Francine Bergé), the governess of Jacqueline’s child, is after his wealth.
The movie reaches a climax at the party before even reaching the halfway point, and everything afterwards is a wild, incoherent chase with Judex and the detective trying to stop Diana and save Jacqueline. New characters and motives are introduced without fully explaining the background of existing characters or fleshing out prior events.
This rushed pacing leaves a lot of unanswered questions from the beginning of the film: What personal vendetta does Judex have for wanting Favraux dead? What did Favraux do to obtain his wealth? Who was Jacqueline married to before if she has a child? What’s the story behind the governess?
The movie had the potential to be interesting and magical. The masquerade party where the rich folk wear dazzling clothes and bird masks looks very mysterious and cult-like thanks to the aforementioned costuming and cinematography. Judex adds to the mystique by appearing as a performing magician at the party, matching the theme by pulling birds out of handkerchiefs. As the movie tries to take advantage of the fact that actor Channing Pollock is an actual magician in real life, it uses his “magical powers” to trigger hidden doorways, transmit messages, cause sudden death, as well as revive the dead. This fails to explain why Judex himself can perform magic, and how he obtained his resurrection ability. One of the biggest letdowns in this movie is that there are no scenes that show the process of Judex bringing people back to life.
Due to the poor pacing of its story, “Judex” loses all sense of the magic and mysticism that had been set up by its visuals. Everything that should have been told in more detail is lightly brushed over, creating some confusing elements in the plot. Scenes that should have been given more dramatic effect became unimpressive. There was a lost artistic opportunity to do something really unique with the bird heads and magic tricks, but they became unimportant as the movie prioritized summarizing the story.
“Judex” is based off of a 1916 12-episode film serial, which would explain why the plot in this movie version skips over vital information and lacks depth. In the end, I was unimpressed by this feature-length film and only received a poor gist of what happened.
