La nuit fantastique

A weird, great, creative, and pure fantasy, with a fresh approach, like you can't find one like this, even now! Marcel L'Herbier's style was like Max Ophuls mixed with Jean Cocteau. --- Hamidreza Rafatnejad

La Nuit Fantastique, as directed by Marcel l'Herbier... Those who have watched the director's silent classics l'Argent or l'Inhumaine may have their expectations upset by this movie. Stylistically it is poles apart. It is all fun, chic and froth, nothing much serious going on.

The plot is very simple, Denis a French arts student tends to fall asleep during his nighttime work at the flower market. He has dreams of a beautiful woman in white, and falls in love with her. One night whilst asleep he follows her on a series of fantastic adventures, beset by charming villains on all sides.

As mentioned elsewhere it is ludicrous to believe that Fernand Gravey is young enough to be a student. On the whole though I thought his performance made him a lot more youthful, full of ephebe sensitivity and brass, boyish insolence and naivety. As in all art, but here particularly, disbelief must willingly be suspended, and there will be ample reward. Christiane Nère is brilliant as Gravey's waking girlfriend/shrew who competes with the dream lady. Saturnin Fabre as Professor Thales hams it up brilliantly with the most superb facial expressions you'll ever see. You'll notice that no place names or dates are given, this adds to the intensity of atmosphere. I think it could be quite easy to mistake this movie for an auteur's potboiler. However quite a lot of care obviously went into making this truly escapist fantasy, the characters get to play dress up, make love on roofs, thwart dream plots, thumb there noses at suitors, sleep in flower markets etc. And in my opinion the craft and the acting are seamless. Quite a lot of shadows in this film, probably due to lack of budget, but makes for true magic realism.

Tale a holiday from yourself, a purely ecstatic roller-coaster of dream logic awaits, see if you can get your hands on the OOP DVD, mine cost a pretty penny.

N.B. This movie deserves to win the award for worst opening credits ever, truly shocking, don't let them put you off.

The main problem is the choice of the lead:he is supposed to be a philosophy student and Fernand Gravey was 38 when he made this movie.It is impossible to believe he is a young romantic lead (Jean-Pierre Aumont or Louis Jourdan would have been better in such a part).

All that remains is original,inventive,and it is probably Marcel Lherbier's best talkie.After his brilliant silent works,his career had its highs (this movie,"le Mystere de la Chambre Jaune","le Bonheur","l'Affaire du Collier de la Reine") and its lows (dreadful melodramas such as "l'Enfant de l'Amour",les Hommes Nouveaux","la Porte du Large" or stodgy propaganda films such as "Entente Cordiale"). Ten years before René Clair's "les Belles de Nuit" ,Lherbier tells a tale of a dreamer :a student who is forced to work in "les Halles" and dreams his life away.It was the Occupation time in France and escapist works were par excellence the prevailing genre(along with "moral'" melodramas such as "le Voile Bleu" ): 1942 also brought Marcel Carné's "les Visiteurs du Soir" and the following year Delannoy-Cocteau's "l'Eternel Retour" .You could even call Gremillon's work "le Ciel est à Vous" an escapist film:a woman who had a dream to fly.

"La Nuit Fantastique" is a movie of its time.Certain of its aspects are dated ,but its best moments are still impressive today.The student meets a woman in his dreams :she will be nothing like he pictured her to be and he can never see her face;in real life,his lover cheats on him with one of his so-called pals.

One night,he "enters " his dream .The gap between dream and reality is brilliantly rendered:using time warp,masterfully working on the pictures (fuzziness) and on the soundtrack (sometimes the words become incomprehensible),Lherbier builds a sensational dreamlike atmosphere.And by introducing magic and conjurers,he gives his movie a fourth dimension.Melodrama is also present (Who is really Irene?)but it is kept to the minimum.Perhaps the final is a bit disappointing but it might have inspired Jean Cocteau for the last picture of his celebrated "la Belle et la Bête".Anyway "la Nuit Fantastique" is sometimes close to a fairy tale too ,with a smart use of Tom Thumb;and the scene on the roof recalls Andersen's "the shepherdess and the sweep" which Grimault/Prevert transferred to the screen as "le Roi et l'Oiseau"

One should also note that Lherbier's movie was made five years before "the secret life of Walter Mitty" a movie which borrows some ideas from it (making the hero out to be a lunatic ;here,the heroine)

"You can be brave when you know you are dreaming" the hero says.

The feeble beginning made me fear a very bad movie. The main character is dull and the rest of the cast just can't make you forget the studio they are playing in.

Then the Fantasy Night begins and this journey through the night is well paced with funny situations all taking place in bizarre surroundings. There's never a grand scene but on the whole it's entertaining.

Theme overlapping

Maybe the wooden thing in it is the start point with this White Lady the hero uses to dream of. It aims to be poetic whereas the following is mostly a comic adventure. The most interesting focus should have been on this shy guy's behavior as a hero for he thinks he's dreaming. Unfortunately it's not the main theme in La Nuit Fantastique.

Last point: the work on sound is somewhat interesting too for a movie made more than 60 years ago.

It's different than i expected. I thought this is an art dramedy/fantasy/romance movie but this is a lighthearted comedy romance. No drama neither artsy, just a comedy movie with a romantic element. It's not hilarious, don't anticipate laughing out loud moments but it's a fun ride, enjoyable with a totally satisfying ending. Micheline Presle is the damsel in distress, Gravey the sentimental leading character and the rest of the actors embodied the comedy relief element. A nice movie for all the family. Nothing groundbreaking or mindblowing, just a fairy tale. Not a MUST WATCH for sure, but i am glad i watched it.