As a youth, Franju devoured the pulp thriller Fantomas and the film serials of Louis Feuillade (Les Vampires, Fantomas and Judex) just as passionately as he read Freud and Kafka. As a young film enthusiast who along with Henri Langlois founded the Cinémathèque Française, he helped resurrect the reputation of Feuillade, whose films were beloved of the Surrealists. Judex is Franju's homage to Feuillade, and it is itself a strange and very beautiful film. Franju evokes the avant-garde-Surrealism, the poetry of Jean Vigo-as well as camp nostalgia in a world where mysterious black-clad figures effortlessly climb walls, white doves appear out of nowhere, and good inevitably conquers evil. (Though who is good and who is bad is always a matter of politics: in Fantomas, the ruthless villain was taken by all his fans, including the Surrealists, as the hero.) The story returns to Feuillade's era, circa 1914, and the setting of the original Judex, the castle of the wealthy banker whose many wrongs Judex ("The Judge") intends to redress, aided by his sidekicks Cocantin and The Liquorice Kid. Meanwhile, the banker's daughter is falling in love with the legendary sleuth, who turns out to be vulnerable enough where it counts. In fact, in some ways the film is about the fatality, the "tired destiny" (à la Fritz Lang) of those who must play out the archetypes of good and evil.