Written by Andreas Babiolakis

This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. This is a Grand Prix winner: what the Palme d’Or was originally called before 1955. The Damned won for the 1947 festival as one of five honourees in different categories: the only year that Cannes did this. This film won specifically for Best Adventure and Crime Film.

The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Georges Huisman.
Jury: Raymond Borderie, Georges Carrier, Jean-François Chosson, Joseph Dotti, Escoute, Jean Grémillon, Maurice Hille, Robert Hupert, Alexandre Kamenka, Jean Mineur, Henri Moret, Jean Nery, Maurice Perisset, Georges Raguis, René Jeanne, Georges Rollin, Régis Roubin, Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon, Segalon, René Sylviano.

René Clément’s The Damned is the kind of film that is a strong idea carried out by a good-enough execution. Created after World War II, this claustrophobic drama places Nazis and Nazi sympathizers on one small U-boat en route to South America during the final days of said war. The end is nigh for Nazi Germany, and these fugitives of war aim to have a head start, as to not get caught for what they have done or condoned. Unfortunately for them, Clément doesn’t give a shit, and has used his vessel, The Damned, to torture these criminals within another vessel. Tensions grow high upon the U-boat. Good. While you can view The Damned as a vehicle of comeuppance regarding awful people, you can also watch the film as an analysis of what makes these people as bad as they are. How do they respond to one another in close quarters?

The film pans out decently enough, but its primary focus is to act as filmic reparations for the millions of people affected by World War II: here is Clément’s way of getting back at these monsters. It would have been more interesting to see how deeply into the psyche of these people the film could have gone, but I cannot fault The Damned for stopping short just to see these cretins be miserable. The film was released only a couple of years after Nazis were killing innocent people left, right, and centre. Who would want to figure them out in any capacity? Nonetheless, I still think that it would have made for a better film to dive more deeply into these characters, no matter how awful they are, to figure out how they wound up this way, or the extents of their misguided moral compasses. If anything, it would make the justice feel sweeter, as if we are inspecting real people getting justice’s cold awakening, and not characters being toyed with by a filmmaker.

Still, to see what unfolds in The Damned is to be pulled along by suspense. The premise is the main attraction here, and the various turns are what keep you interested. Does The Damned go as far as it should? Not quite, but it is still an understandable cinematic catharsis. It went as far as it needed to upon its release. It stops at its concept, and the film’s staying power also concludes when it does. It’s quite riveting to watch, but I was onto the next thing as soon as I was finished watching it. It’s a shame, because there could have been something really impactful instead of just an interesting experiment. It’s worth checking out, but I also think the deep dives into disgusting minds, and the cinematic paybacks of terrible people in history, have both been done more memorably since then.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.