Portas da Noite

This started out as a ballet choreographed by Roland Petit called Le Rendez-vous, with a libretto by Prevert and music by Kosma. This ballet was one of Petit's finest works and was in fact given a new production in Paris only last month (March 2013). Carne saw the possibilities in the story and had Prevert write the screenplay. No expense was spared, we are told, to recreate the world of Barbes-Rochechouart, with the replica of the Metro station built on set. It is fashionable with some people to dismiss this film because Gabin and Dietrich aren't in it, or for some other reason having to do with politics, but I found it a wonderful experience. My only complaint is with Vilar's character, which was transferred from the ballet apparently, and is very tiresome indeed. His windy philosophizing only diminishes the enjoyment I felt in the story.

The actors do a tremendous job. Saturnin Fabre as the father of Malou and Guy, with his fake expressions of affection for his long-lost daughter--she had spent some years singing in New York--and his reluctance to admit to his collaboration with the Germans gives a strong performance. Raymond Bussieres as the train driver is a wonderful foil for Montand. Serge Reggiani as Guy, the militia member who denounced Bussieres to the Gestapo is creepy and cynical. He would have shot his father if the latter had tried to prevent him from escaping. Pierre Brasseur again shows us why he was one of the greatest actors in France: his businessman with the shady dealings that horrify his wife is very well crafted, given the small number of lines he has.

Finally Montand and Nattier are not replacements for Gabin and Dietrich, they are better because younger and much less prone to give actorish performances. You can see Montand working out how to play a scene. His responses are lively and right. Nattier looks great--every bit as glamorous as Dietrich, and she can sing too. Her scene with Fabre sizzles with anger and disappointment.

This movie is so much better than the limp confections that followed: La Marie du port, Therese Raquin, Le pays d'ou je viens, Les tricheurs and others. Carne was still fairly young and hadn't started to phone the work in.

Prévert's script has no interest, Yves Montand and Nathalie Nattier play badly, the character of destiny is ridiculous. But the sets, the photography, some superb shots of Paris just after the war (Montmartre, the rotunda, the Bassin de la Villette, Jaurès, at the very beginning of the film), the songs of Kosma and Prévert, a certain atmosphere worth the detour.

Paris in December of 1945: Liberation, but the war goes on and people scramble to live in a frozen world. Yves Montand takes the metro to tell a friend's wife that he died six months earlier, only to find his friend there. They celebrate, they talk, we are introduced to the usual cast of eccentrics in Marcel Carne's small slice of magical realism and Montand meets the most beautiful girl in the world, Nathalie Nattier, and her traitorous brother, Serge Reggiani.

The cast of supporting characters is up to Carne's usual standards, including Jean Vilard as a tramp who thinks he's destiny, Pierre Brasseur as Miss Nattier's despised husband, Saturnin Fabre -- whom I first encountered in a Max Linder short from 35 years earlier -- as a grasping local junk dealer..... but why go on? Almost everyone is fine, except for the three actors at the center of this movie: Montand, Nattier and Reggiani, all of whom simply don't measure up.

Perhaps this is because the Montand and Nattier roles were originally written for Jean Gabin and Marlene Dietrich; when they dropped out, the roles had to be recast and the results were... unfortunate. Neither actor could project the world-weary gravitas required, and the entire movie, which might have been magnificent, is merely very good, carried by the supporting cast. Yet it makes one wish for the movie done right.

Winter in Paris, 1944. The occupying Germans have fled, Vichy disbanded but the war still rages on and shortages exist. Jean Diego (Yves Montand) exits at the Barbes Rochechouart metro station to deliver bad news to the wife of a friend. It turns out the news is erroneous, however and the wake turns into a celebration as Diego and the family go out to dinner where he finds himself entranced by a woman (Natalie Nathier) he views from the window of the restaurant. She wants out of her marriage and the pair meet later by coincidence. Meanwhile a jealous husband (Pierre Brasseur) searches for her.

Released in 1946, wounds still fresh from the occupation Gates of the Night is more than just a tragic romance but also a recent reminder of the collaboration and betrayal of fellow Frenchman during that period as well as those who benefited from the calamity. Director Marcel Carne shows no sympathy for these exploiters as they attempt to re-write their recent history. Pierre Brasseur, Serge Reggiani and especially Saturnin Fabre convey their complicity denial with unctuous conviction.

Carne and screenwriter add a touch of fantasy with a homeless character believing he is destiny in human form and while it rattles the verismo of the picture it provides additional ambiguity and interest.

Shot in typical graceful Carne style, (with cinematographer, Phillipe Agostini providing some stunning night canvases) the romance (with its "Autmn Leaves" background music) tends to be rather mawkish. Carne also chooses to jump from the film's climactic moment to another almost as pressing only to distract from both.

Romance removed Gates of Night must have engendered a good deal of emotion and soul searching to a French audience and the very recent memory of its occupation.

Making my way through the films of Marcel Carné I come at last to this, which, after just watching Les Enfants du Paradis, can't help but feel somewhat lesser, and indeed the film does feel like less than the sum of its parts. There's some wonderful stretches but for it to work it needed to pull all of the strands of story together in a satisfying way by the end, and it doesn't, it just misses the mark. The pacing also drags in parts, particularly towards the end.

As often with foreign language films from the past, the English subtitles are poorly translated and unclear, making the point and subtext of certain passages hard to follow.

The fabric of the film is glorious, though, with a magical mood and ravishing photography. The premise of fated lovers is very nicely evoked, if not satisfactorily executed. Still very worth checking out though.