I prigionieri del sogno

Amazing, one of the best movies seen in years. Finding it was a total surprise, since I had never heard of it. Yet it should keep company alongside Renoir's "La Regle du Jeu" (also 1939) or Carne's "Hotel du Nord" (1938).

The story features the sharp edges of Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) sanded down by the spirit of Leo McCarey. One of the rare, non-grating performances by Michel Simon. Also standouts from Victor Francen and Louis Jouvet. Francen in the 1930's already plays a senior citizen, yet he will appear in films of the 1960's looking hardly any different. Louis Jouvet, after starring in "Hotel du Nord" is at his best here as St.-Clair, an egotistical, sinister cad whose shortcomings are revealed with realism leavened by sympathy in the Duvivier-Charles Spaak script. Few actors have portrayed evil with the depth and complexity of Jouvet in this movie.

To describe any of the plot points would only detract from the experience of watching this movie. Relating just about any incident would amount to a sort of "spoiler", since I think I appreciated this film so much because I knew so little about it. Viewing should precede reading where this movie is concerned.

It is enough to say that "La Fin du Jour" belongs on any list of great movies.

The subject matter of the lively arts appears frequently on screen. If you like "La Fin du Jour", I could recommend "Floating Weeds" (1958) or "For Fun" (1993), members of the same family in spite of being many years and many miles away from Duvivier's world.

A fabulous cast of actors (Jouvet, Simon and so on) for a bitter movie, with still some tenderness in it. It is a hard story about people loosing themselves in front or THE big issue of life. Remember this movie was shot a few month before WW2 started ? Even if not connected at all with the political/social context of that period, still it reflects the uncertainties of the period, through hard and changing characters. A must.

It's been decades since I've seen this French classic, but I'm bemused by the description of it as "bitter". Like Dustin Hoffman's new "Quartet" (2012), it views aging performers both wistfully and lovingly and certainly not without humor. There is a harsher and more tragic incident at the heart of the chief conflict here, but ultimately the film is a loving portrayal of everyone from the truly great to the mediocre but devoted personalities that make up the theater. It is a homage in other words to the whole world of performing, which of course ranges from tragic to comic figures, from stars to failures, but, as stirringly presented in one speech here, is united, and set apart, by a shared passion. The climactic scene is expertly orchestrated and the words "We, the poor, the obscure" ("Nous, les pauvres, les obscures") from a classic play are re-purposed to devastating effect, so much so that they linger with me decades later. As does, not a bitter, but an uplifting sense of the nobility of living one's life in service to art, even if the rewards at "the end of the day" may be no more than bittersweet memories. -- Probably hard to find, but if you understand French (I doubt anyone's taken the trouble to sub-title this), worth the effort.

"One never touches something great without being grown up oneself". This melancholic praise of the theater, as if it had more reality than life, is superbly put in abyss by Duvivier, who has fun revealing to us its pretenses, its sad and pathetic narcissism. A tender, crepuscular and dark ode to a world that is unraveling at the same time as it is being filmed. A last tribute, an ultimate remorse.

Well, it might have been one of the great French classics, to stand with Les enfants du paradis, Quai des brumes, La regle du jeu and so on. Instead we have Louis Jouvet who is really inspired as the great seducer Saint Clair; he was moving as the Baron in Les bas-fonds, and as Arletty's pimp in Hotel du nord, but here he is really vicious as a washed-up actor who doesn't get curtain calls anymore. He rereads old love letters from his flames of thirty years ago; this is an agreeable way to pass time.

Michel Simon as the understudy who can never get on stage because the star is never sick gives another fine performance. Think of a Boudu with more work ethic and a sense of humour and you've got him. The third male lead is Victor Francen, playing an actor who never realized his potential because his wife died (in a suspicious manner). He was born to play Racine and Corneille, but could not rise to any heights owing to the weight of grief. I am not convinced by anything Francen does here: there seems to be a hollow man behind the well-trimmed beard and elegant clothes. Gabrielle Dorziat is a pleasure to watch in anything (how great she was in Les parents terribles). She has a very affecting scene with Jouvet, one of her old loves.