At first glance ‘On ne meurt que deux fois‘ (or ‘He Died with His Eyes Open‘ – the title of the English version) is another detective movie, with a police inspector investigating a murder. And yet this ‘whodunit’ style story comes to life on screen beyond expectations. There are several good reasons, but it all starts with the script bringing to screen a novel written by the English novelist Robin Cook (not to be confused with the American author of medical thrillers with the same name) and published in France in translation in the famous collection ‘Serie noire’. In fact, it is more of an adaptation than a screenplay, with the authors of the script changing the characters quite a bit and transferring the story from the underworld of London to the elegant salons of the Parisian fashion and art world. However, given that the adaptation is signed by Michel Audiard (together with the director Jacques Deray) I was expecting many good things. It is actually one of the last films written by Audiard, released in the last year of his life, 1985. Audiard is a master of spoken text, a screenwriter who knows how to build characters and put words into their mouths that sound natural, intelligent and adapted to the social environment and the story. In this film too, his characters cross the screen well and remain in the memory long after viewing.
Roger Staniland is no ordinary police inspector. When he is assigned to investigate the murder of a man who turns out to be a talented middle-aged pianist, he almost single-handedly takes charge of the investigation. His method of working is immersion in the victim’s life. He spends long hours in his apartment, puts on his clothes, listens to the magnetic tapes on which he had recorded the daily events as a kind of personal audio diary. (To understand the technology, the viewer must be 40 years+. Today, instead of recording on tapes, the victim would probably have used a mobile phone and an Instagram or TikTok account). Things get complicated when appears Beatrice, the victim’s mistress, a fascinating and dangerous woman. Immersion in the life of the victim risks exceeding the permissible limits.
As a detective story, the film is quite neutrally shot. Even the scenes in the deserted Parisian streets in the middle of the night or in the discos where the detective ends up on the trail of the victim do not add much. The film’s qualities and psychological tension are built through the two main characters, who each maintain a consistent dose of ambiguity, leaving the viewer to fill in the neutral areas with their own imagination or character analysis. Beatrice, played by Charlotte Rampling who was then at a maximum of magnetism and with the aura of mystery that she adds to many of her roles, does not hide from the beginning that she is playing a dangerous game, but neither the investigator nor the viewers will find it easy to cast aside the successive veils of personal secrets and appearances. In the role of the inspector appears Michel Serrault, a talented actor, chameleonic in other films. Here, at first glance, the character is a rather ordinary man, a policeman who does his duty intelligently and without too many scruples, but whose personal sphere is also in danger when he is confronted with the fascinating woman who can be criminal or victim. The two characters represent two poles of interest around which the whole story takes place. The bond between the two is painstakingly constructed, but fails to be entirely believable when the plot slips into erotic thriller. The scenes in the victim’s apartment, in the cafes and bistros where the investigation takes the inspector build an interesting ensemble not only from the point of view of the progress of the investigation, but especially of the evolution of the characters. The performances of the two actors, the interesting story and the dialogues by which it is transposed on the screen, make ‘On ne meurt que deux fois‘ a recommended viewing or re-watching even today.