Else, The foreign femme fatale in Jean Renoir’s La Nuit du carrefour (1932)

This essay considers the face of the femme fatale, a character at the core of films noirs. I consider the character of Else in the incomplete and lesser known Jean Renoir film La Nuit du carrefour (1932), the first filmic adaptation of Georges Simenon's eponymous novel. I interpret the film as a poetic and surrealist vision of the femme fatale who is rather a child-woman in French cinema. She is also a foreigner, which adds to the charm and mystery in relation to Inspector Maigret, ushering a troubling discourse to the film, through the xenophobic traits that come out of the dialogues.