Tête Contre les Murs, La

Franju set his first feature in a mental home in which Mocky, a wealthy layabout, has been committed (rather too easily) by his father simply because the young man had vandalized his desk. He befriends an epileptic (singer Aznavour in his first screen role) and escapes to Paris with a nice, steadying girl (Aimée). Mocky adapted Hervé Bazin's novel as a vehicle for himself, but the ambiguity of the character - his real mental state is never established - weakens the film, and it is dated so does not really stand up as a social document. However, the film, superbly photographed by Schüfftan, has a certain eerie poetry.