Love fades and hatred settles in, holding firm for a very long time in Pierre Granier-Deferre's grim study of a marriage gone bad. Jean Gabin & Simone Signoret are a married couple whose relationship has outlasted their love for one another. They live in nearly mute misery, staying out of each other's way & exchanging notes as opposed to speaking. Gabin shows more affection, in fact ALL of his affection, toward a stray cat than to his wife. Signoret, a one-time acrobat injured years earlier & now saddled with a permanent limp exacts a terrible revenge on both Gabin and his cat. Granier-Deferre peppers the film with a fair amount of symbolism, but it's never muddy. It's quite clear that the decline of Gabin's and Signoret's relationship coincides with the gentrification of their neighborhood. Their house is the last on the block slated for demolition. An astounding, brilliantly acted movie and a very harsh look at just how nasty one human can be toward another. Philippe Sarde did the haunting music score.

To make a review short, the acting by Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret is nothing short of fantastic. The film is a downer but it's worth watching. There's something in French cinema that's unique. It often creates towering, almost mythical characters through mundane situations. The two actors make anyone from Hollywood look amateurish.

Elderly couple. Husband has nothing to communicate to his wife any more. Wife still longs for some affection. Only cat gets affection. Wife shoots cat. Husband even more alienated.My wife and I were watching this movie on TV. Our cats were sitting on our laps, happily purring. "A very profound movie about man-cat relationship", I remarked. "Actually it is more about the relationship between humans, or the lack of it", my wife replied. Of course, she was right.

This started as a Georges Simenon story, and is typically brutal about human relationships. I like it so because of the performances of Gabin & Signoret - they were as good as you can get, and here are at the top of their powers. Either of them would have blown anybody else I can think of off the screen. Excellent, if very French.