Things to do in Paris when you're dead

Le Feu folle (The fire within)

(1963)

Bonsoir, je m'appelle Blab, et je suis un Malleholic. This one, just out on a gorgeous Criterion Collection disc, can't but remind me of the second section of The Sound and the Fury, where Quentin Compson, in love with his sister but in love even more with death, spends his day of suicide wandering more or less aimlessly. Here Alain is in love with his estranged American wife but in love even more with death, and if his wandering has a bit more aim than Quentin's--among other lost loves, e.g., romantic and political--he's no more budgeable from his inevitable path.

The film is not without humor, though that too is tinged with bleakness. The recovering alcoholic Alain's steadfastly resists alcohol, even on this, his final day, and when he finally succumbs, all the booze does is make him sick. In my head Peggy Lee pleads, "Is that all there is?"

Oh! But in the actual soundtrack we have Erik Satie (and in a sly nod, we glimpse a program bearing Satie's name in Alain's room). Defiant lowbrow that I am, I was blissfully unfamiliar w/ Satie's work, but I can give no higher praise than to say that it's as perfect here as was Miles Davis's in Ascenseur. Clearly Malle's ear was the equal of his eye.

Saturday a.m. plate of shrimp: what do you suppose the 5-letter fill is for 31-down in the Times crossword puzzle, "'Relâche' composer"?