Performances I Fucking Love #01: Peter Lorre in M

Para mim, M – clássico de 1931, dirigido por Fritz Lang – pertence à santa trindade dos thrillers (juntamente com The Silence of the Lambs e Seven. É arrepiantemente atmosférico, com uma não menos acutilante fotografia a preto e branco e com uma tremenda interpretação de Peter Lorre enquanto Hans Beckert, serial killer.

Com uma das faces mais expressivas dos anos 30, Lorre tinha um tremendo magnetismo, que em M, contribui para elevar o suspense do filme. O seu assombroso desempenho tem tanto de sinistro como a personagem que encarna.

Na cena-chave do filme, Beckert é levado para uma cave onde inicialmente é confrontado por uma panóplia de silenciosos olhares que o julgam e o condenam pelas suas acções. Rapidamente se instala a insegurança, a desorientação e a apreensão. Não se desenvencilhando da situação em que se encontra, instala-se o desespero, a angústia e a raiva. E depois? A culpa. Segue-se um dos momentos que mais marcou a minha memória e um verdadeiro testamento ao estrondoso talento de Lorre.

HANS BECKERT What do you know about it? Who are you anyway? Who are you? Criminals? Are you proud of yourselves? Proud of breaking safes or cheating at cards? Things you could just as well keep your fingers off. You wouldn't need to do all that if you'd learn a proper trade or if you'd work. If you weren't a bunch of lazy bastards. But I... I can't help myself! I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment!

SCHRAENKER Do you mean to say that you have to murder?

HANS BECKERT It's there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me, silently, but I can feel it there. It's me, pursuing myself! I want to escape, to escape from myself! But it's impossible. I can't escape, I have to obey it. I have to run, run... endless streets. I want to escape, to get away! And I'm pursued by ghosts. Ghosts of mothers and of those children... they never leave me. They are always there... always, always, always!, except when I do it, when I... Then I can't remember anything. And afterwards I see those posters and read what I've done, and read, and read... did I do that? But I can't remember anything about it! But who will believe me? Who knows what it's like to be me? How I'm forced to act... how I must, must... don't want to, must! Don't want to, but must! And then a voice screams! I can't bear to hear it! I can't go on! I can't... I can't...