You Only Live Once (75th Anniversary Edition)
You Only Live Once (75th Anniversary Edition) DVD (Studiocanal)
‘You Only Live Once’, Fritz Lang’s noir tale of doomed lovers, Eddie and Joan, is a master class in celluloid story telling, and seventy five years after it was first released, it’s still a powerful tale that pulls no punches and offers no excuses, focussing on story, character development and raw emotional impact as it delivers it’s tale of woe and human suffering. Eddie, is just out of gaol after serving his third time, knowing that if he goes back, it’s a mandatory life sentence, but this time he has something to ensure that he stays out, Joan, the woman who he loves who loves him. Shortly after their wedding, Eddie is arrested for robbery and murder, found guilty and sentenced to death even though he’s innocent, he breaks out of prison just as his official pardon arrives. Unaware that he’s been pardoned, he kills the prison chaplin during is escape and goes on the run with Joan, fleeing toward the border and the hope of a new life and freedom, but noir doesn’t believe in happy endings and fate catches up with Eddie and Joan before they can reach their new life, as together they embrace the only kind of freedom they can, and will, ever know. It’s an incredible film, emotion enhanced by stark background and the brutality and violence of Eddie and Joan’s life is implied and never shown, with Lang leaving the audiences imagination to fill in the blanks that he deliberately avoids, a film that hurtles toward it’s inevitable conclusion, never judging it’s protagonists, instead just telling their story, leaving the audience to form it’s own opinions and ideas on the morality of both the story and characters. Fonda’s performance as Eddie is breath taking, a raging, complicated anti-hero shaped by the society that abandoned him, whose mistrust of the world and wounded soul are slowly healed by Joan. Posing questions about judgement, punishment, trust and faith in the system as well as delivering a cracking tale, ‘You Only Live Once’ is as relevant today as it ever was, and is proof positive of the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Like the finest wine, after seventy five years, ‘You Only Live Once’ is maturing nicely, and just gets better with age… Tim Mass Movement
