Borges Film – Emma Zunz (1969)

Cathérine Salviat in 1981

Emma Zunz

1969, France, 54 min.

Crew
Directed by Alain Magrou.
Produced by Pierre Kafian and Alain Magrou.
Screenplay by Alain Magrou, based on the story by Jorge Luis Borges.
Photography by Daniel Vogel and Jean-Luc L’Huillier.
Music by Francois de Roubaix.

Cast
Cathérine Salviat — Emma Zunz
Michel Etchevery — Löwenthal
Marianik — Perla

Synopsis

After her father was framed by his colleague Löwenthal, Emma Zunz decides to take revenge.

Comments

The Argentine writer and filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky writes about Emma Zunz in his 1980 book, Borges In/And/On Film:

Produced for French television, this second adaptation of “Emma Zunz” had a clear advantage from the start: meant to last less than an hour, it did not have to stretch out the story with unnecessary digressions. The resulting film, however, was so weak, so approximative, that a great part of its reduced footage is repetitive or merely ineffective. Moreover, the entire adaptation seems to have been overwhelmed by a brief passage at the end of the story’s second paragraph: “She picked up the piece of paper and went to her room. She furtively put it away in a box, as if somehow she already knew the subsequent events. Perhaps she had already begun to glimpse them: she already was the person she would become.” From these few lines arose the unfounded assembling of a long sequence of premonitory images based on the moment when Emma, standing in front of her window, crumples the letter informing her of her father’s death. These staccato flashes-forward are poorly edited, arranged with no interesting cinematic idea to support them. They induce sleep rather than excite suspense, and their avalanche of clues, more irritating than alarming, promises no ultimate revelation.

Except for the notable presence of Cathérine Salviat, who provides Emma with a shy face and is able fight off the monotony of the scheme that Magrou has laid out for her, and except for the exterior shots of Marseilles, which contrast the summery, crowded, foreign liveliness of the city with the story of a private vengeance, this is an utterly forgettable film.

Cozarinsky was quite correct in his assessment: Magrou’s Emma Zunz barely registers on the Web; there are no stills, posters, or clips. Even the image of Cathérine Salviat used above comes from another film, Sunday Lovers (1981).

Additional Information

IMDB Page
The Internet Movie Database features a sparse profile on Magrou’s Emma Zunz.

Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 25 August 2024
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