“The Necklace” by Peter Halmi

“The Necklace” by Peter Halmi

“The Necklace” (“Le Collier”) is the anguished portrait of a perverse fantasy, the other face of beauty, when it devours reality and seduces the spirit. The structure of the film, cleverly orchestrated by Peter Halmi, the director, allows the viewer to feel the majestic feeling of ruin when it arrives. Halmi, as a true cinematographic author, manages to give life to a personal vision, which goes well beyond the premises of an excellent story. By taking advantage of the more subliminal elements of cinematographic narration, such as music, editing and sound, the director manages to create a “reality of the unconscious”, which gradually replaces the classic and ordinary tone with which the film begins.

In this climax of magnificent cinematographic value, a strong narrative component never fails. The excellent script on which the film is based is part of that sublimation of reality mentioned above. The dialogue is sharp, dry and suspended. Suspended in the Parisian alleys, or in the mostly empty house of the blind man. In the relentless pace of narration, the specter of greed and vanity makes its way to the end, when the film reaches the height of its delirium and the protagonist seems to serve her faults in a kind of hell more complex than simple punishment. The work investigates the corruption of the spirit and in representing this perverse attraction, Peter Halmi builds a refined and sparkling aesthetic system of rare beauty, which compels the viewer to his personal resistance against the charm of ruthless vanity. Each element of this film composes an articulated interweaving of symbols and ambiguities: a continuous representation of the disagreement between desire and morality, also declined in a female perspective, which gives a powerful charge of complexity and elegance to the labyrinths of the psyche. In this personal change of reality, between dreamlike and delirium moments, Peter Halmi affirms himself as an extremely interesting author.