Critic’s Pick: ‘Rififi,’ ‘Breathless’ are French treats on DVD
The French classics “Rififi” and “Breathless” are Kenneth Turan’s DVD picks this week.
Nothing suits a legendary film, especially a French one, better than getting the Criterion Collection treatment, and two new movies, equally compelling but very different, get the joint DVD/Blu-Ray package from that fine company.
“Rififi,” directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin, is considered the heist movie from which all others descend. The 1955 film’s robbery sequence, shot totally without dialogue, is justly celebrated.
Celebrated in a different way is another film with a kind of crime on its mind, Jean-Luc Godard’s jazzy “Breathless” (1960), one of the films that kick-started the French New Wave by following Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo as they wove their web around Paris. Unforgettable.
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