PASSION

In all likelihood, few works in the history of crime fiction have been embraced around the world for adaptation the way James M. Cain’s novella The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) has – there’s a Malaysian Muslim version and an Italian neorealist one just as there’s one made in West Germany. No surprise there: the story of the woman who seduces the stranger passing through town in order to have him help her get rid of her hubby could be set anywhere and remains pretty much the same from a moral perspective across all cultures and religions. Add to that the fact that Cain’s novel is something of a skeletal construction, whose details and embellishment can be adapted according to personal taste. Still, PASSION is in many regards quite possibly the closest in spirit to the original of the whole lot. At the very least, Féher managed to come up with an aesthetic whose stripped-down character proves to be a perfect match for Cain’s prose – albeit conceived in a trance state.