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Information
- A.k.a.
- The Human Beast
- Year
- 1938
- Runtime
- 100 min.
- Director
- Jean Renoir
- Genres
- Crime, Drama
- Rating *
- 7.5
- Votes *
- 4,725
- Checks
- 1,682
- Favs
- 119
- Dislikes
- 6
- Favs/checks
- 7.1% (1:14)
- Favs/dislikes
- 20:1
Top comments
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Siskoid
Jean Renoir creates a contained noir thriller out of Emile Zola's novel, La bête humaine, in his 1938 film adaptation, set in the (then) present day as opposed to the end of the 19th Century. It is the story of a jealous railway employee who kills a man, and the train engineer who looks the other way and winds up falling in love with the murderer's wife. If my English-speaking readers don't know Zola, think of him as Steinbeck's French precursor, and so it is impossible for the characters to escape their class/family-mandated destinies, no matter how hard they try. Inevitability drives this well-acted melodrama. The train is, in fact, more than a simple backdrop, but a symbol of Zola's brand of literary naturalism. It goes back and forth between two places, but can never deviate from its tracks. The film's characters are thus doomed to repeat the history they want to escape from, and touchingly, they know it. 5 years 3 months ago
Friends
Login to see which of your friends have seen this movie!In 9 official lists
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This movie ranks #9 in François Truffaut's The Films in My Life
François Truffaut's The …
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This movie ranks #85 in iCheckMovies's 1930s Top 100
iCheckMovies's 1930s Top…
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This movie ranks #86 in Time Out's 1000 Films to Change Your Life
Time Out's 1000 Films to…
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This movie ranks #89 in The Guardian's 1000 Films to See Before You Die
The Guardian's 1000 Film…
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This movie ranks #131 in BFI's 360 Classic Feature Films Project
BFI's 360 Classic Featur…
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This movie ranks #183 in Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema
Jonathan Rosenbaum's Ess…
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This movie ranks #365 in The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
365 -
This movie ranks #411 in TSPDT's 1,000 Noir Films
TSPDT's 1,000 Noir Films
411 -
This movie ranks #973 in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films
TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest F…
973