André Cayatte
Siamo tutti assassini

We Are All Murderers is a film of denunciation.

It is a passionate plea against the death penalty. The director André Cayatte, a journalist and lawyer, had already made some denunciation films, but it was with this one (Special Jury Prize at Cannes) that he gained the deserved recognition.

It is a very well-constructed film, both in terms of writing and dialogues (by Charles Spaak, father of Catherine) and acting. The soundtrack is absent, typical of French films of the era.

There's also Amedeo Nazzari, in the role of the prison doctor, and it is he who, during the trial, launches a precise je accuse towards French law of those times (just after the end of World War II) where the guillotine was still in use.

There was war, therefore, with all its horrors. There was poverty and the deepest hunger hand in hand with total ignorance, and out of hunger one could do anything, from prostituting oneself to killing someone. This is why a young man, dirt poor, without a father, with an alcoholic mother, a prostitute sister, and a younger brother in worse condition than him (note that the young actor is excellent) will end up in jail and be sentenced to the guillotine for murder.

All the short first part with hunger, the war, corpses to be disposed of, the resistance and the murders is extraordinary, but it's when the boy is arrested that the film truly begins... A condemned to death. In a cell with other death row inmates like him, all terrified, waiting for the call. They come at night without making a sound... it's when you hear no noise that you are in danger; they can come at any moment...

Condemned to death enclosed in an isolated cell away from all other detainees. Faced with the grievances of the opponents of the atrocious guillotine (the death penalty in France would be abolished only in 1981), the response was to "set an example" (so you'd "learn your lesson" as they'd say from where I come from) or to "teach a lesson."

The topic is more complex than it seems if we add potential judicial errors and if we do not take into account the social or psychological distress that leads some individuals to kill others only to then be killed themselves... The film also criticizes the church, indeed, because at the point of death the priest would give you the last kind-hearted sermon (repent? come on, repent, kiss the crucifix, do be good).

Are we all murderers then? Who knows... today it's trendy to say JE SUIS "something," but that's another story (maybe).