The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short

This moving and remarkably original first feature from Delvaux (based on a novel by Johan Daisne) makes his subsequent excursions into 'Vogue' surrealism (Un Soir...un Train, Rendez-vous à Bray) look decidedly redundant. The man who has his hair cut short is Govert Miereveld (Rouffaer), a hopeless schoolteacher who develops a crush on a mature female pupil; the experience unhinges him, and his involuntary attendance at an autopsy is enough to push him right over the edge. Delvaux's main feat is to take his audience into Miereveld's manias without pretending to explain them, but he also manages to maintain an unsentimentally detached view of his character as an outsider, especially through the recurrent use of the Kurt Weill-esque 'Ballad of Real Life' on the soundtrack. The result is a mixture of psychological thriller and noir love story, and it's more than a little wonderful.