Hotel do Norte

A fairly intriguing mood piece from Marcel Carne loosely based upon a book involving various tales of persons staying at the Hotel du Nord at the side of the Canal Saint-Martin. I have stayed close to this very spot myself and what was considered very much a working class spot is now much regenerated but still most recognisable. Recognisable, that is from the sets built by Carne for there is no location shooting in this 1938 film, the set apparently being so famous (and costly) at the time that the public were encouraged to visit and even dine under artificial lighting in the evenings. The film itself does not begin well and although of the two young but desperate lovers, the lovely Annabella is fine her young man played by Jean-Pierre Aumont is very bland and spouting seemingly silliness by comparison. Incredibly it turns out that the writer had objected to the choice of the actor and when thwarted deliberately gave him flat dialogue in spite. Whatever the reason this begins a little oddly, becomes very strange and settles into being a fairly diverting amusement, if that is not damning this with too faint an amount of praise. At best I would consider this an interesting insight into a strange moment in time for the French with their imminent capitulation to the Germans. Officially considered part of a limited movement known as 'poetic realism', I find the term a rather appropriate oxymoron, despite the film coming to life a little as Annabella's character interacts effectively, if not altogether believably, with those around her. I would just mention the older and more prominent couple also staying at the hotel, a prostitute and here pimp. The latter is played somewhat stiffly by Louis Jovvet, more used to working on the stage, but the jolly lady of the night is played in a much more spirited fashion by Arletty and is probably the most lively element of the film.

"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".

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.

I suppose I always felt that Hotel Du Nord was studio-bound, the movement of people cars and camera were just too effortlessly smooth and stagey to have been filmed on location. But no problem - it's still a much underrated lovely composition from Marcel Carne. The plot seems a bit choppy at times, as if they were making it up as they went along, but because it is unpredictable holds the attention to the bitter end. The comings and goings and goings-on at hotels are always full of rich possibilities anyway. The money shots when the two lovers are alone in their room are saddled with some rather stilted dialogue, but it's all so lovely to fall into any inanity can be accepted. Are these two young people symbols of a cancerous hopelessness in pre-War France or simply idiots? Suicide pacts are fairly common; if the suicidees are young and healthy with their lives before them untrammelled would you think anything other than that they were just misguided fools?

Arletty played the part of prostitute well - she kept that zipper on her dress busy throughout anyway! I've only seen a few films with Jouvet - he is the most impressive invention as pimp in HDN - my trouble is shallow: every time I see his face I think of Sonnie Hale in Evergreen!

A remarkably atmospheric, well acted and photographed film with so much happening it needs a few viewings to get it all in place. Annabella and Aumont made an exceptionally beautiful couple; Francois (Heurtebise) Perier in his 2nd film had a small amusing part as a gay man. All in all, a wonderful film. Next: Le Jour Se Leve.

I've just checked out the previous comments for this movie; it is interesting to note that 1) they are all favorable, 2) they all date from 1999 onwards and 3) they range from a simple recording of a joyous experience to the quasi-academic/analytical. This tells us clearly that even a film made 65 years ago can still speak to us today and bring pleasure on the one hand whilst inspiring in-depth analysis on the other. I am only saddened that not one commenter deigned to give a nod to Jean Aurenche, the great screenwriter (though one correspondent, did acknowledge Aurenche's co-writer Henri Jeanson who helped adapt the Eugene Dabit novel). In his 80-odd years Aurenche wrote more than 70 movies, just under half with Pierre Bost, and arguably his best known script outside France was 'Jeux Interdits' in 1952, though he also wrote 'Paris brute-t-il?' (Is Paris Burning?) an international production, and toward the end of his career, wrote for Tavernier - 'L'horlager de St. Paul', 'Coup de Torchon' - and his stories about working during the occupation inspired Tavernier to immortalize him in 'Laissez-Passer'. But I digress: French actors have always had a penchant for single names - Raimu, Bourvil, Coluche, Fernandel, etc - and in Hotel du Nord we have no less than three of them, Andrex, Annabel and Arletty. The first two fell by the wayside - unless you want to count the toilet tissue made famous in England by TV commercials featuring puppies - but Arletty remains one of the all-time greats and even rumors of collaboration have failed to dim her memory. Here she is at her best which was just as well as she was up against Louis Jouvet, another giant of the French stage and screen. The film is drenched in atmosphere which is echoed, whether intentionally or not, in Arletty's great line, which our French commenter rightly says is the most famous in French cinema and which he/she translates well as 'atmosphere, does this face look like atmosphere (is it that this face). Though he was no Jacques Prevert (but then, who is?) Aurenche had undoubtedly absorbed the poetic realism invented by Prevert and brought it to bear on this, only his sixth screenplay. Though at a basic level it is just another melodrama that ends in tears there are metaphors and symbols a plenty if, as our Dublin commenter, you care to look for them. The small, enclosed and private world just behind Gare de l'est, the 'trouble in paradise' motif that is introduced as soon as the idyllic opening sequence of 'one big happy family' has been established, the threat from outside - at a basic level the hoods who have come to find Mr Edmond, at another the Nazi thugs waiting in the wings - etc. Read it how you will it remains a great film. Apart from Aurenche none of the other commenters mentioned Bernard Blier, also at the beginning of a long and distinguished career, to say nothing of siring director Bertrand Blier - the commenter who was so struck with Louis Jouvet may care to know that Blier played opposite Jouvet some nine years later in Clouzot's 'Quai des Orfevres'. The Hotel du Nord is still standing but is now (or was when I last visited), owned by Greeks who haven't a clue about its place in history despite the smattering of lobby cards, affiches, etc in the bar and it is now a venue for English comics. The canal St. Martin is itself undergoing major changes, presumably not for the better but as for Carne's movie and Sandy Traunaur's sets, both were Canal Plus long before there was a TV channel (now technically defunct) and will remain so long after Canal + is just a co-producer credit on sub-Carne movies.