Hungarian Film Review, 'The Man From London'

”Just go home and forget all about this story,” says the private detective to the railway guard at the end of The Man from London, partly addressing the widow of one of the two victims murdered at the end of the story. The middle-aged man then staggers off in a vague direction, perhaps to the place which was his home only a few days before. 

The widowed woman just stays sitting motionless and stares silently ahead. How could any of them forget the story they had only just survived (indeed, the railway guard might easily have died) and which certainly left them emotionally and morally crippled? Nor can the viewers take on board the detective’s advice. How could we forget these devastated faces, the people whose undoing we were forced to witness?

The novel by Georges Simenon which served as basis for the film is no ordinary crime story. The mystery is not the identity of the robbers and murderers but what takes place in people’s hearts. A British circus artiste steals a London bar owner’s money, runs away to France, at the docks he pushes his accomplice into the water and the suitcase falls together with the man.
 
The railway guard at the docks fishes out the suitcase and with this act sets off the real story – that of the self-tormenting dilemmas and ever deeper identification with the other wretched soul, the unfortunate robber. Tarr moulds Simenon’s sensitive and subtly descriptive story to fit his own view of the world. He retells a story of perdition, showing that there is always further to go downhill. 

There are conditions more destructive than material want, like the sin of loosing the last remnants of honour and dignity. Lured by the hope of happiness and prosperity we are dragged into betrayal and self-abnegation.

Despite a few jarring moments, The Man from London is a considerably more mature and unified work than Werckmeister Harmonies which composed misery into scenes of mannered beauty and calculated effect. It is a stark and grave piece of work. Not a gesture of defiance, not a tongue stretched out, but another hard sentence uttered in a language developed at great cost."

Source: Hungarian Literature Online