10:30 P.M. Summer (1966) - Jules Dassin

Maria and Paul are a married couple whose better days are behind them.  Along with their daughter and Maria's friend Claire, they are on a road trip to Madrid.  On their way, they come across a village where a man is wanted for shooting his wife and her lover.  Maria has long suspected that Paul and Claire have been having an affair for years but this coincidence along with her desire to catch them in the act, leads her on a path of alcohol abuse.  Maria becomes obsessed with this murderous man, hoping to help him escape from the police.  Jules Dassin's 10:30 P.M is an incredibly stylish journey into a devious love triangle told through the eyes of a deliorious, heart-broken woman.  Dassin has created a film that through sound and visuals evokes exactly what this main protagonist is going through, and It's safe to say this is Dassin's most stylish endeavor.  One of my favorite sequences takes place on the balcony where through one of her alcohol-indused dreams she witnesses Paul being unfaithful with Claire.  Dassin's use of editing and cinematography are incredibly well designed, putting the viewer into Maria's sorrow-stricken headspace, disorienting the viewer in an effort to make us feel like her.  In a way, one could say that Dassin's film is a cautionary tale about the power of passion, with every character being slave to its power but what elevated Dassin's 10:30 P.M. above what some would consider pretentious is its ability to capture the distress and fragmented emotional state of a wife who discovers her husband is cheating. 

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