Saw Le Salaire de la Peur (AKA The Wages of Fear) It's an extremely tense but simple film. Set in the absolute poorest of slums, it follows two men who must transport a tanker of nitroglycerin across a rocky mountain pass. Half of the film follows their relationship. One of the two is a bum, lounging around a bar, not drinking anything and alternately smacking around and flirting with the owner's daughter. The other is a paper gangster. He arrives in town with a Pharaoh-like horse-hair whip, broke, but with airs. They fall into a master/servant relationship, the gangster making vague promises about when he strikes it rich and the other servilely and churlishly following orders.
They are matched against two other men who get along well. They smile and laugh as they transport the explosive while our heroes sweat and fall catatonic. They refer to themselves as the walking dead and make funeral, gallows-humor jokes to each other. The film is not heavy-handed with this symbolism and instead bends most of its efforts toward ratcheting up tension. The slightest puddle and tight turn become impossible, soul-crushing obstacles. The men alternate falling apart and being strong. Also, I don't want to give anything away but two teams is obviously one too many. Their minds suffer and give way. Their endless use of each other as psychological and physical punching-bags is contrasted with the other truckers' easy friendship.
The film is tremendously tense. I still feel a bit jittery. It's on par with the best of Hitchcock or Haneke. It's really good. The plot is not tremendously twisty and the film is a bit lacking in nuance, but the characters are well-acted and the emotional hits land with great force. Good stuff.
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