As the great Thomas Pynchon once wrote, “paranoia is the garlic in life’s kitchen – you can never have too much”, and few films have been able to encapsulate this idea better than Panique, the fascinating character study brought to life but Julien Duvivier, who is adapting the novel Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire by Georges Simenon, which tells the story of a murder in a charming French neighbourhood that is populated by people who consider themselves to be the embodiment of morals and integrity. The film, which works best when we look at it from a slight distance, is a haunting character study that leaps into the world of post-war France, examining the dominant mentalities and prominent practices that existed in every sphere of society, whether it be through the gritty realities faced by the working class, or the frivolous pleasures of the high society. In Panique, the focus is mainly on the former, looking at the lives of a few people who find themselves in close proximity to a murder, which begins to affect them in unexpected ways, especially since it becomes clear that this is not the work of some anonymous stranger, but rather very likely the actions of someone they know, which allows the director the space to not only explore a murder from his distinct position as a wildly imaginative filmmaker, but also make some unforgettable comments on the nature of community, which is something that is often neglected in more traditional crime stories. Panique is a fascinating document of a film, a daring and compelling combination of darkly satirical drama and raw, visceral crime thriller that set the standard for generations of future filmmakers, many of which will likely cite this as a major influence, both in terms of style and substance, which we can clearly see as the inspiration for many works that would come in subsequent years.

Duvivier was a director whose vision was always succinct and clear from the first moments, even when he was operating across several different genres, many of his films combined crime narratives with some other conventions, which led to the director establishing quite a unique style that would be highly influential for later generations of global filmmakers, particularly those that would eventually come to form what we now revere as the French New Wave. This is certainly very true for Panique, which blends bleak crime procedural with harrowing social commentary, which combines to form this vivid story of a murder that causes a series of unfortunate events amongst a closely-knit population. This is a film primarily driven by its atmosphere, with the dense storyline being undercut by an almost delightful sense of levity that may be a lot more subtle, but exists to show a deeper side of the story. Nothing highlights the darker aspects of the human condition more than well-placed humour, and through assimilating it into the already complex story, Duvivier creates a truly unforgettable (and often quite comprehensive) drama about ordinary folk that have their community shaken up by a murder, but where the focus is less on the actual act (with the perpetrator being revealed to the audience very early on in the film) and more on the ambigious space between committing the crime and being caught, which can last an eternity, especially for those who are doing whatever possible to ensure that they do not pay the consequences for their actions. Subverting conventions of a genre that often depends entirely on a set structure, Panique is a very inventive work that is constantly yearning to push boundaries that were still developing at the time, which is even more proof to the film’s outright brilliance.

Something that anyone who has explored the height of the Golden Age of French cinema will undeniably agree with is that an easy way to ensure that a film is worth watching would be to place Michel Simon in one of the roles. As arguably the finest character actor to ever work in the medium, especially since he was equally skilled in leading and supporting parts, Simon constantly brought his beloved eccentricity and raw talent to every project in which he had a role. Panique is one of the several instances where he is foregrounded, playing the role of the reserved but moral curmudgeon whose anti-social nature makes him the perfect candidate on which a murderer and his accomplice can place their attention, using him as a pawn to assist in their escape from the law. Simon was such a gifted actor, when he was playing a role that is a lot more subdued, he still brings a great deal of compassion and insight into the performance, and his work in Panique is unsurprisingly stellar. He’s not as comedic as he normally would be, nor is he acting as the straight man to more offbeat characters – instead, he’s a deeply melancholic older man who falls victim to the perverse desires of a pair of criminals who decide that he is the perfect scapegoat for their plot to cover up their own misdeeds. Simon is absolutely heartbreaking in the role, and while the film does shift attention away from him at key moments (enough to dissuade any indication that Panique is designed to be a film solely about this character, but rather one that uses him as its emotional core), it makes up for it in the very strong performances coming from Viviane Romance and Paul Bernard, who are suitably maniacal as the film’s villains, two individuals are drawn together by their shared lust for each other, which leads them to become embroiled in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, which the film uses as the foundation for its scathing social commentary.

In many ways, the best way to perceive Panique is not through looking at it as the most earnest example of any of its genres, but more as an ethnographic study of the people who populated a particular time and place, which is essentially the approach being taken throughout the film, especially in how it foregrounds Simon’s character, who represents the everyman – ordinary, conventional but often forced into bearing the brunt of the blame when it comes to unfortunate incidents, almost as if it is easier to shift responsibility onto the innocent, since they likely have a much bigger challenge in fending off the accusations of guilt. It does place a lot of emphasis on the individual played by Simon (as well as the two antagonists, who are doing whatever they can to evade capture), but the real heft of the story is found in the smaller details, particularly those that surround the communal underpinnings of the film. Duvivier utilizes the close-knit nature of the community very well – when the murder was likely committed by someone within the vicinity of the observers, there’s a level of foreboding danger, almost as if the director (by way of Simenon and the beautifully evocative story he told in his novella) was implying that crime narratives that place the blame on outsiders may be popular, since they allow audiences to satiate their craving for a good crime story, but without having to endure the shocking reality that those around us have the capacity to be criminals themselves. It’s an unsettling idea, and the film does not seem all that interested in giving viewers the clear resolution that a more conventional film may feel impelled to provide – but this discomfort is actively engaging and leads to constructive conversations, not only on the nature of how art represents reality, but also in how reality can take many different forms depending on how one views it, which seems to be the central thesis statement of this film.

Panique is a film that can’t merely be viewed from the perspective of a passive observer – we’re not just peering into the lives of these characters, but seem to be accompanying them on their journey, which entails an abundance of social critique, especially in how it demonstrates the debauchery and despair inherent to even the most seemingly pleasant community. Beneath every idyllic hamlet there lie some dark secrets, and while this concept could be seen as being overly simplified in terms of focusing on a single murder, the film is investigating far more than just the perpetrator of this violent crime, plumbing the depths of social horror in hopes of finding something valuable. It does this many times over, and ultimately becomes a hauntingly complex exploration of society in a time of considerable instability, where everyone depended on each other more than they did the higher institutions, which were often proven to be unstable (there’s a wonderful moment in the film where it becomes clear that characters can easily find the bakery or grocery store, but struggle to locate the police station, one of the many subtle satirical details that persist throughout the film), and showing how there is a lot of discourse surrounding the role community plays in shaping our understanding of a particular kind of event. Theatrical in scope, but woven together with intricate detail by a masterful filmmaker, Panique is an absolute triumph of socially-charged drama, and one that would go on to influence decades of well-constructed, riveting thrillers that draw fascinating correlations between society and psychology, which has always been a source of a great deal of meaningful discussion.