Judex, the Judge

There is a scene in Georges Franju’s Judex where the titular character, dressed in a slick black suit and wearing a large bird mask, picks up a dead dove outside a large estate and enters the belle époque ballroom. After he slowly floats through the crowd, as if he is dancing his way deeper and deeper into the party, he stops in front of the crowd, snaps, creating a short-lived flame, and magically revives the dove. Then, he proceeds to pull doves out of thin air, letting the graceful birds flutter all around the amazed crowd. After he personally gives a bird to a lady (Favraux’s daughter) we momentarily shift attention to two other gentlemen wearing black bird masks. They wonder what Favraux will be wearing, and one of them responds, “A vulture mask.” Then, like magic, the vulture masked Favraux appears to do a toast. However, in order to do so, he removes his mask, meaning he is the only exposed individual in the entire party. Mid-toast, the clock strikes midnight, and we zoom in on a clock atop a mantelpiece and as we do so, we see, reflected in the mirror behind the clock, a terrified Favraux looking towards the clock and a placid Judex standing next to him. As we zoom in more and more however, the clock blocks out Favraux, leaving only Judex in the reflection. The time for judgment has arrived and Judex magically presents a glass of champagne to Favraux and the man then drops dead. However, he never drinks before falling.

This is my favorite scene in the entire movie. It’s so precise and magical. The camera remains placid while the content is surreal and magical. It’s as if two perspectives are colliding. Whenever I mention this film to my friends, I always have great difficulty in giving them a brief synopsis to intrigue them. This is simply because I can’t really say, with absolute certainty, that I know what happened in the film. But I still love it, and I find myself revisiting Judex, over and over again.

Remarkably, this is not the first film I left saying, “What the fuck happened?” It happened when I watched Inherent Vice and it happened when I watched The Big Sleep. But I absolutely loved these movies because, regardless of whether I understood the plot or not, I was invested, almost in a hypnotic state, but conscious enough to know I’m enjoying the moment. It’s a kind of magic.

There is a contextual history for this film that’s too long to go into, so by considering this film in isolation one of the biggest questions is why is Judex doing all this? Which makes him, in turn, an enigmatic wonder. However, that is what the present day me would say, but watching Judex, I wasn’t watching it academically; I reverted to a little kid who was just amazed by the magic – Judex is just really fucking cool.

I love when the mechanics of the craft and the content are almost separated, but paradoxically, play with one another in such an intricate way that it completely goes under your radar – thus creating a surreal experience where you are smiling and you aren’t quite sure why right away.

A small flame flickers for an instant and the dove flutters to life. Judex has arrived to execute his judgement and you will see the magic that transpires when his sentence falls.