Carnet di ballo

One of the great classics of 1930's French cinema and one of cinema's great ;memory' pictures, "Un Carnet de Bal" has, sadly, fallen out of fashion in these more cynical times despite its being a surprisingly hard-nosed and often bleak movie. The plot revolves around recently widowed Christine as she tracks down the men she danced with from an old dance programme of twenty years before, (when she was sweet sixteen). Of course, each of them has changed drastically, almost to the point where they are no longer recognizable; in fact two are already dead and as Christine explores her past some harsh truths emerge.

Marie Bell is a luminous Christine, the great Francoise Rosay is magnificent as the mother of a boy who may have killed himself for love and a whole host of great French actors of the period play the survivors and potential suitors. There are flawless performances from Harry Baur, Pierre Blanchar, Fernandel, Louis Jouvet, Raimu and Pierre Richard-Willm. It also represents the high point in Julien Duvivier's career and was at one time considered among the greatest films ever made. It cries out for rediscovery.

While Godard and co were still in diapers,Duvivier,Renoir and Carné were inventing the best French cinema that had ever been. I would trade you all M."A bout de soufflé" filmography for "un carnet de bal"

Leonard Maltin gives a four stars rating to this 1937 movie,and all we can do is approve of his judgment.The movie of nostalgia,of time passing by,of disenchantment,"un carnet de bal" is all this and more.

On the banks of a lake -the romantic place par excellence-,a woman is remembering her past.Her madeleine de Proust is her dance card ."Memories tumbling like sweets from a jar".But these sweets leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

She goes back in the past,in search of her long lost dance partners. She will have to delude herself:what she discovers is ruined lives,regrets,embittered characters,human wrecks.Time is a hard Master and it leaves no one unharmed.As always in Duvivier's work,the harder they fall,the better the sketches are.For it is basically a movie made up of sketches,Julien Duvivier's métier.All youth ideals have gone down the drain:the brilliant medicine student has become an abortionist;the lawyer with bright prospects now has a lousy shady cabaret;one of the woman's beaus is dead and his mother gone nuts acts as if he's still alive.Two of them have escaped from a doomed fate:but one has become a priest and the other keeps his love for something else than women .

The movie made up of sketches ,as I said, had always been Duvivier's forte.Here ,there are seven flashbacks,one prologue and one short epilogue :strange how this final resembles that of Mitchell Leisen's "to each his own" (1942),when the boy says to Olivia De Havilland:"I think it's our dance mother".Having directed with a topflight cast "tales of Manhattan" (1942) in America,Duvivier went even further in the "sketches movie":in "sous le ciel de Paris" ,he used intertwined little stories till all these subplots became a seamless whole.

Yes ,Julien Duvivier's importance in the seventh art is incalculable.

i saw this film for the first time 1946, and was completely spellbound. last time i saw this film beginning of March 2003. the magic was still there. i understood the film much better,enjoed it more. Who can ever forget the haunting melody of the walz or the final episode with Fernandel.

Newly widowed Marie Bell (Christine) is clearing out her house when she chances upon her dance-card from her first ball which she attended when she was 16. She is feeling nostalgic and determines to track down each name on the card to see how they are doing in life. Who knows, maybe a love will rekindle?

The film is a series of set pieces as Marie sets about her mission and each name on the card is given a short section. This made the film tolerable to watch as beforehand I was thinking to myself "Oh my goodness, this film is almost 2 and a half hours long!" Well, it doesn't seem like it and that is a credit to the director and the actors and actresses involved. In fact, the film is constantly entertaining even if it does focus on some downbeat situations. You can definitely relate to these people. My favourite story is the one that concerns the priest as it shows how life can move on from sadness in a positive way. I do have 1 question, though - what is that ending about!!? Is that a blossoming romance!!?

In real life, sentimental reflections just make me sad so I don't see the point but this film is worth a watch even if the topic is somewhat asking for trouble. I googled a friend when I was reminiscing of past times and found out that he had become a Hollywood stuntman and had jumped from a plane but his parachute failed to open. Miraculously, he survived as some tree branches broke his fall. He broke every bone in his body and his memory has been affected. I wish I hadn't looked him up! This film is a bit like that but more fun.

This is one of the quintessential films of the classic age of French cinema. One just has to look at the credits: directed by Duvivier, with Fernandel, Baur, Jouvet (one of his best roles), Marie Bell, Francoise Rosay... all of them at the peak of their form. And held together musically by Jaubert's haunting theme melody, which I can still hum in the nostalgia cupboard of my memory fifty years after I first heard it.

The story is slight. Actually it is a series of vignettes, strung together by the bittersweet pilgrimage of a woman who sets out to find again the men who signed her first dance card. But that is just a pretext for a marvelous set of character sketches played by a marvelous cast of character actors served by a great character director.