Hôtel du Nord

Hotel Du Nord is a gripping drama of guilt in which Marcel Carne portrayed an entertaining tale of ill-fated love which also functions as a revolt against the cruel world.The film is based entirely on a pair of hapless lovers.Pierre and Renee were mistaken when they believed that suicide would put an end to their misery.Hotel Du Nord has its own inimitable charm as its inhabitants have become an essential part of the establishment.There is an element of togetherness as everyone flocks to Hotel Du Nord to eat,chat etc.Marcel Carne has remained true to the spirit of the films produced in 30s and 40s as Hotel Du Nord has a certain kind of nostalgic feel.Carne,while recreating the life of Parisian roads was able to create a sort of nostalgia for black and white giving a unique genre of poetic realism to his oeuvre.Hotel Du Nord can be termed as a quintessence of cinematographic populism.The 14th July ball scene on the banks of Saint Martin canal remains a magnificent sequence.The film's immense popularity can be judged from the fact that Hotel Du Nord has been declared as a national monument.

"Hotel du Nord " is the only Carné movie from the 1936-1946 era which has dialogs not written by Jacques Prévert,but by Henri Jeanson.Janson was much more interested in the Jouvet/Arletty couple than in the pair of lovers,Annabella/Aumont.The latter is rather bland ,and their story recalls oddly the Edith Piaf's song "les amants d'un jour",except that the chanteuse's tale is a tragic one.What's fascinating today is this popular little world ,the canal Saint-Martin settings.

This movie is dear to the French movies buffs for another very special reason.The pimp Jouvet tells his protégée Raymonde he wants a change of air(atmosphère) Because she does not understand the meaning of the world atmosphère,the whore Raymonde (wonderful Arletty)thinks it's an insult and she delivers this line,that is ,undeniably,the most famous of the whole French cinéma:

In French :"Atmosphère?Atmosphère?Est-ce que j'ai une gueule d'atmosphère?" Translation attempt:"Atmosphere?atmosphere?Have I got an atmosphere face? This is our French "Nobody's perfect".

Over the banks of Canal St Martin in Paris, there is "Hotel du Nord", a creation of novelist Eugene Dabit, dialogist Henri Jeanson and director Marcel Carne, a purgatory for the past sins, a lost station where people can relieve themselves from the burden of the pasts, as the weight of luggage thrown on the bed. There's something oddly definite in a hotel room, everyone stays, but some just don't want to be reminded they'll have to go, sooner or later.

The film opens with people celebrating a communion and the atmosphere (beware, this is a word you'll often find in this review) is cheerful with people joking about cops and religion. There is the local lock keeper who takes some pride from regularly giving his blood while he should be more suspicious about the kind of services his very wife provides, she seems to be too much of a good public for the local womanizer but Bertrand Blier in his earlier years of good-natured cuckolds' roles, fails to see it. There is an adopted Spanish kid goes to his mother's arm because the thunder reminds me of the Civil War's bombing, What this dinner with its gallery of colorful characters shows is that, in the interwar period, people took life as it came, at times enjoyed it but some didn't find reasons to find enjoyment, and the past had a lot to do with it.

The film centers on two couples, starting with Raymonde (Arletty) and Monsieur Edmond (Louis Jouvet) who're not "at the party", which literally in French, means that they're far from this universe and don't care about it. In all fairness, Raymonde seems to care about people, she is enthusiastic and welcomes the little girl who brought her a piece of cake, her companion, the grouchy Edmond asks why he doesn't have one. We suspect he couldn't care less and only needed a reason to complain, he's a man who won't let one smile slip from his face, maybe because life plays like a succession of thunders reminding of previous bombings. He eats, he drinks, smokes, practices his hobby which is photography, but inside, he's dead. Raymonde lives and smiles for two, she join the guests and lets her man alone. We'll find out later that they had a past that partly explains their opposite natures.

The other couple is Renee and Pierre (Annabella and Jean-Pierre Aumont), they're young and good-looking and they're ready to commit suicide, they just lost it, they don't trust the world anymore and 'Hotel du Nord' was the edge of their lives, like "Romeo and Juliet", they're dying together. Their dialogues are sentimental and almost too theatrical, contrasting with the lively slang of Arletty and Jouvet and the film takes a weird dark melodramatic turn until we hear a 'bang'. When Edmond gets in the room, he finds Renée lying in the bed and her lover who didn't have the guts to pull the trigger for him; Edmond lets him go and calls the Police. Renee survives but in her act of death, she gave Edmond a reason to live. There's no shortage of ironies in 'Hotel du Nord' and this one is the most poignant.

Edmond find someone unhappier than him and realizes very soon that he can't stand Raymonde. This leads to the iconic moment of the film, one that might be lost in translation, but that can't be ignored due to its resonance in the history of French cinema. Edmond planned to travel with Raymonde then he gave up; realizing that the problem isn't in the destination but the company. He's suffocating with Raymonde, he needs to change his atmosphere, which she is. Now, can you even describe an appeal that all lies in the thick Parisian accent of Arletty who finally has her rebellious moment, tired of her companion's tantrum and shouting "Atmosphere? Atmosphere! do I look like an atmosphere?" This is a line that has the same resonance as the 'Waterfront' contender speech or 'You talking' to me?' It came to the point that people would see the film because of this line they generally heard of before even seeing the film.

Does the line capture the spirit of 'Hotel du Nord'? Yes and no. No, because it wasn't meant to, the word doesn't carry any particular meaning, it just transcended itself in the mouth of Arletty, proving that cinema works in mysterious ways, any quote can become legendary just because it has the right accent, intonation and actor to deliver it. And yes, because this is a key word when you think about it, it's all about the atmosphere where we can find life more livable. The film opens with many couples, some stay the same, some break up and get back together, some live, some try to travel but then realize they have more to lose in leaving and some are tied to other people and can't do any move without them.

Arletty and Jouvet are the two driving forces, the yin and the yang, the woman whose heart is like a window opening to welcome the glow of the morning and the man who lives in perpetual nighttime and realizes that there might not be an atmosphere for him. And through "Hotel du Nord", Marcel Carné proved his importance on the field of French cinema, after "Quai des Brumes" which featured Gabin as a deserter, he went for a less controversial subject, and made film about little people who wonder in the same place and try to find a meaning in their lives, without making their quest too existential, some are stuck to the past, some pray for a brighter future, and some live in the present. The following year, present, past and future will all make one: war.

So like a seeming calm before the" premonitory storm, 'Hotel du Nord' is like a fascinating conjunction of three visions of life, or let's say three atmospheres.

In a hotel in Paris two lovers agree to take their own lives, the woman is romanticizing the suicide in a degree she must represent the escapism of many not so well-off in prewar Paris. The hotel is in itself a meeting place for the people of the district. Pierre shoots Renee, but is disturbed by Edmond so he flees the scene.

The story in itself is not so extraordinary today, but nothing takes away from its impact still. It has no problem of holding your attention to the very end. Its my first meet with any involved in 'Hotel du Nord'. Louis Jouvet is very good in his joy and meaningless role that finds meaning for just a little while. So is Arletty.

Fragile Carne, just before his great period. Although it is sometimes hesitantly directed, and marred by longueurs, HOTEL DU NORD is full of the faded charm and beauty typical of French films of the late 1930s, as well as a relative lightness of touch unusual with this director. All of his great virtues are here: the cramped interiors broken up by gliding, complex, delicious camera movements; a melancholy deployment of light and shade; remarkable, wistful sets by Alexander Trauner, which are so evocative that they, as the title suggests, take on a shaping personality of their own; the quietly mournful music of Maurice Jaubert; a seemingly casual plot about romance, tragedy and fatalism that casts a noose over its characters; extraordinary performances by some of the greatest players of all time, in this case Louis Jouvet and Arletty.

In fact, the film's biggest failing, and I find myself astonished (as someone who usually, didactically, minimises its importance) to admit it, is its script. It has plenty of wit and poignancy, but without the poetry and irony regular Carne collaborator Jacques Prevert brought to their best films, it cannot avoid slipping into cliche (even if it is only cliche in hindsight).

Ostensibly set in the boarding house, the film sets up its opening idea of community with two interconnecting tales of doomed love, and emotional, metaphysical and actual isolation The doomed love scenario is the one that works least well. Annabella is very beautiful, but not very good at doing tragic, while Aumont's callowness, brilliantly appropriate though it may be, by its nature obtrudes any real, felt, romance. Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to sympathise with a couple, so young, so attractive, who, after only a few months, are so racked with despair that they have to shoot each other. Their high-flown lines are rather embarrassing too. Of course, this affair is not meant to be plausible - they are symbolic of youth, hope and possibility being crushed in France, or maybe France itself, despairing, resigned, waiting for death. For symbols to be truly powerful, they must convince on a narrative level, which, I feel, they don't quite here.

What saves this plot is its connection with the story of M. Edmond, a character linked to the great tradition of French gangsters. Although we only learn it gradually, he is a killer in hiding, living off the prostitute played by Arletty, having dobbed in his accomplices. In his previous 'role' - and the theatricality of his position is crucial - he had one set of traits; in hiding he has assumed their complete opposite. Living a rather aimless life, he is profoundly shaken by the lovers' pact, and becomes fatalistic, realising the folly of trying to cheat death.

In this way - the admission that one is less a person than a collection of signs, and that death is an unavoidable reality the most powerful masculinity must succumb to - Edmond is like a romantic prototype of Melville's clinical killers. With one exception - he gives briefly into hope, a delusion which only strenghtens - if that's not too much of an unbearable irony - his fatal resolve.

All this could have been trite if it wasn't for the truly amazing performance of Louis Jouvet. I had studied his theatrical work at college, but this was my first taste of his screen talents, and he reveals himself to be worthy of the greats - Grant, Mastroianni, Clift, Mason, Mitchum, Cotten - giving a quiet nobility to a role which is more of a conception (he, needless to say, is allegorical too) than an actual person. Edmond begins the film a minor supporting character, but emerges as a tragic hero of some force. Like all those major actors, Jouvet's brilliance lies in what he conceals.

On a formal level, what amazes is Carne's grasping, ten years before its flourishing, of the techniques of the great Hollywood melodramas of Sirk, Ophuls, Ray and Minnelli. Although his theatricality lacks the fluidity and clear-eyed beauty of Sierck's contemporary German melodramas (check out the masterpieces ZU NEUEN UFERN and LA HABENERA), Carne's style truly fits his theme - that of entrapment, paralysis, resignation.

The film's principle motif is that of water - the credits float and dissolve, the hotel stands by a waterway - but instead of Renoir's open river of possibility, we have a canal, stagnant and manmade, going nowhere. The film begins as it ends, and the setting never changes, except for one brief interlude from which both escapees are doomed to return. Characters can only escape through death - their entrapment is emphasised by the narrow rooms they occupy, the walls and frames that hold them captive, the windows that look out on an escape they can never achieve. Any hope at the end, therefore, is profoundly, if romantically, compromised.