La baie des anges

Jean is a clerk in a bank. His colleague Caron is a gambler and gives him the virus. In the casinos, Jean meets Jackie. Their love affair will follow their luck at the roulette.

Jacques Demy was still early in his career at this point, having really only made one film, "Lola". He returns here to black and white and a non-musical, the second and last time he would do that. But he always told stories of love and this is no exception. (Some think he had his own take on Hollywood, but that is a whole other issue.)

Here gambling, especially roulette, is glamorized. At a time when gambling was run out of Cuba and was illegal basically everywhere in the United States besides Nevada, there is a sense of mystique about gambling that evokes thoughts of James Bond. This film captures that perfectly.

This film enters with a spectacular high speed tracking shot matched by the hyper circular theme song by Michelle Legrand that sounds both like spinning and falling, and which does indeed represent both the spinning of the roulette wheel and falling in love.

Here we have the side of Jeanne Moreau I don't care for, posey, game playing and artificial... the kind of woman men like and women hate... and that made her perfect in this role. (And her performance her is Infinitely BETTER than in EVA, same type role.) What I like a lot about her casting here is that she looks quite a bit like Marilyn Monroe, but is as different internally as anyone can possibly be - which a lot of the world was doing at this time, being bad Marilyn Monroe wannabees. I love that the platinum hair makes her look much more harsh, older, and very false, and that is, of course, the essence of the character. And this film is mainly a character study, with little story and little explanation.

Our leading man is the young naive everyman sucked into her world in all respects. We feel for his every bad decision, and this is a true and real representation of both the allure and the tawdriness of the gambling world.

Without giving anything away, the ending feels contrived, but in this time period, films wanted "endings"... today a truer ending would just go on spinning like the roulette wheel. Michel Legrand's score is great. Like many of Demy's films, this is a dark story of the current day told with musicality and attention to the games we play with ourselves.

Boy, take Demy away from musicals and he becomes one rather somber director, huh? In other words, I disagree with the previous reviewer, theognis 80821, who described this very bleak study of two chronic gamblers as "fun". In fact, it's so un fun that I sedulously did not buy the tacked on happy ending when Jeanne Moreau's walking ad for gamblers anonymous suddenly and inexplicably decides to renounce roulette for stolid Claude Mann (who may look like Belmondo but does not resemble his acting).

However, until that cloying last scene Demy does not hit a false note as he relentlessly chronicles the toll this insidious addiction takes on a woman of intelligence and sensitivity to the point where husband and child are tragically renounced for momentary highs at expensive and tawdry casinos. And Moreau's great performance ensures that you experience the full ugliness of it. Give it a B plus which would have been higher without that sappy ending and a different actor in the lead opposite Ms. Moreau.

On the one hand, as someone who has never gambled once in her life, this is low-key fascinating as it offers a glimpse into a world unknown to me. On the other hand, ill-advised, habit-forming, and kind of filthy as the vice is, I feel unclean even watching, like I may as well be watching people live in perpetual clouds of cigarette smoke and brush their teeth with nicotine. And on still another hand, 'La baie des anges,' or 'Bay of angels,' initially comes off as so direct - protagonist Jean's whole outlook changes after the very first time that he plays roulette - that the picture almost recalls exploitation flicks like 1936's 'Reefer madness' or 1954's 'Girl gang'; you know, the type of feature that posits a single puff of marijuana leads immediately to hard drugs and violent crime. Of course, it may be just as true that this is simply a drama that happens to center gambling, though I don't think the alternate perspectives are ameliorated by the fact that Jeanne Moreau, only 35 years old at the time this was released, is made to look significantly older in 1963 than she did in features released just before or even a few years after this. In any case, the movie is fantastically well made all around, and solidly engaging.

I don't know what is more rich and flavorful about this: Jacques Demy's direction, Jean Rabier's cinematography, Anne-Marie Cotret's editing, or Michel Legrand's original music. There's a smart dexterity to each of these facets that comes off as lightheartedness as they shape the film, and I wonder if they aren't the chief highlights above even the storytelling. With that said, Demy penned an engrossing narrative as Jean gets completely sucked into the gambling lifestyle alongside hopeless addict Jackie. The scene writing and dialogue is superb, and rather entrancing as the tale progresses. Above all, the two chief characters are complicated and intriguing in their shared ordeal, and the real focal point of both the writing and the picture as a whole. Jean and Jackie's personalities, and they way they're lit on fire by gambling, are the primary fuel for the proceedings, and I could stand for 'La baie des anges' to be longer than it is just on their account. To that same point, Claude Mann and especially Moreau give excellent performances befitting the variable dynamics of that central relationship and all that the pair go through, and it's a real pleasure as a viewer just to watch them ply their trade.

I can't say that this is perfect, as the ending is a tad too curt for my tastes, not to mention overly neat and clean; the cinematic journey isn't as entirely satisfying as it could have been if the destination weren't so close to where we began. Even setting that aside, for as well made as this is, there's no singular stroke of brilliance at any point, and the feature is never so captivating (let alone impactful) as to demand viewership. Yet for however much one may him and haw about the particulars, by and large this remains an enjoyable, very worthwhile viewing experience. It's a fine credit to all involved, including those behind the scenes, and ultimately a classic that deserves remembrance and recognition. I don't think there's any need to go out of one's way for it, but whether one is a big fan of someone involved or just looking for a good movie, as far as I'm concerned 'La baie des anges' is well worth checking out.

I was chilled to the bone, and mesmerized, by the dark crime of M (1931). Then, in the double-feature session, the 15-y-o boy trespassing as a 17-y-o, quickly changed his temperature when the 'great sinner' Jeanne Moreau appeared on La Baie des Anges (1963). «Actress Moreau forcefully demonstrates the verve, style and flamboyant femaless that make her the envy of European sex symbols much greener in years and cooler in blood. Her wicked, winning presence has saved a bad movie from utter oblivion, and at 36 she knows how to turn Bay of the Angels into a one woman show.» So wrote a reviewer (Time, November 27, 1964), and I couldn't put it better; I'm now copying this from my typewritten notes - no photocopier at home, then. That young boy would never enter a casino in his life due to this film, and he tried to see all the films starring Jeanne Moreau. I'm a winner on two counts, by money not given away to casino owners, and by a plethora of good films that were saved from oblivion by this great woman, and actress.