It seems to have come and gone without a trace and, like the rest of Deville's output, doesn't have much of a reputation today (although it was momentarily resurrected on MUBI). Smack in the middle of such items is the uncharacteristic Deep Water, a mostly faithful (at least on plot level) Patricia Highsmith adaptation. (When they were met at all.) There were even awards for his efforts - Raphael, or The Debauched One (1971) was nominated for a Palme d'Or, and Césars generously bestowed for Best Writing (in 1978, for Dossier 51) and Best Director (in 1985, for Death in a French Garden).

Instead, Deville's parade of light comedies, ornate costume pieces, and stray crime dramas throughout the sixties and seventies were met with a sporadic but broad commercial appeal. The wraithlike antagonism in his mind found an imaginary grip and tightened.'įilmmaker Michel Deville, aged 89 at the time of this writing, may have run parallel with the French New Wave, but the same sort of contemporaneous critical appreciation or subsequent reappraisals have thus far eluded him. 'It was as if she wore a label, 'My Enemy,' in his mind, and his enemy she was, beyond the reach of reason or imagination of change.

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