Vidas Sem Destino

In France,people are more and more interested in the Pre-Nouvelle Vague stuff and we are currently witnessing a huge re-edition of movies ,principally from the fifties.

Henri Verneuil is par excellence the Saturday-night-at the_- movies director ,whom the "intellectuals " the children of the notorious N.V. love to despise .

It's certainly very unfair ;many of his movies have some kind of American know-how ("Le Clan Des Siciliens" perhaps the most American of the whole French cinema just because Verneuil,unlike many colleagues,never tried to sound "yankee" );"La Vache Et Le Prisonnier" is arguably Fernandel's last memorable movie.

"Des Gens Sans Importance " ,as is indicated by its name , deals with working-class people , a subject the Nouvelle Vague never broached (do not mention "The four hundred blows").

It's a long flashback:truck driver Jean remembers : two years ago ,he met a girl ,Clo,"who was not like the other ones and with whom he fell in love".Since the beginning, the situation is at a complete standstill:Jean has a wife (the good Yvette Etievant in an unrewarding part) who spends her time cooking,washing,sewing,mending ,darning,and taking care of their three children in a seedy apartment while her husband is away on the roads ;she appears as a sour-tempered shrew ,but with some excuses: the eldest ,Jacqueline (Dany Carrel) dreams of another life, she sits for cheesecake - "which excites the privates in their barracks" the father grumbles -and in her wildest dreams ,she thinks of stardom ;one of the boys seems to get good marks at school ("dad,I came 3rd this month") but the driver does not seem to care that much.Jean's lover,Clo,who could be his daughter, often harassed by her bosses, cannot find a steady job:she winds up as a cleaning lady in a brothel.The future looks bleak for the lovers :Clo gets pregnant by him and has to call on a backstreet abortionist.

It was a no -exit situation: the final sequences,when the truck is stuck on the road in the midst of dogs' barking and cows 'mooing ,is a transparent metaphor.

The melodramatic side has perhaps not worn well:but the depiction of truck drivers' life,their camaraderie , their difficulties to lead a family life ,all rings true;besides,the pairing of Gabin and sexy Françoise Arnoul is really a winner.

like this? try these.......

"Gas -Oil" Gilles Grangier,1955

"Un Témoin Dans La Ville" ,Edouard Molinaro, 1959

This is a working class picture, and films about labor and the labor struggle, deserve a separate category from working class films. The mass of working class literature and film deal primarily with families of the workers. The genre has evolved more recently, to include realistic (and entertaining) depictions of the working conditions in offices, and businesses. By the definition of a working class film, this one is ahead of it's time.

Viard is trying to use his skills at the highest level of his ability. He turns down a temporary job. He also asserts his right to decide which routes he deserves. This is not management/labor in an either or dialectic struggle, this is the labor management partnership which came out of WWII when industry needed more sophisticated, and skilled workers.

The title reflects the needs of working class people to achieve that level of importance. Viard jumps into the generation gap, when his daughter cruelly mocks him. This is a man torn up by the changes in society, who accepts his fate (somewhat) stoically. He is a real hero, in that sense of the term.

Gabin captures the physicality of the Viard, a man defined by his occupation, a man who puts more into his job, than merely his back. His romance is part fatherly, although Clothilde is closer to his daughters' age, she respects him. The respect she shows Viard, is more important than her physical relationship with the middle-aged man.

He then risks his job to be closer to her, to the source of that respect, again not out of vanity, but a sense of completion she provides, and he ultimately proves to be her undoing. Great stuff.

This movie has a lasting effect in middle aged men's heart. A love story between an ordinary truck driver and a young woman of a suburban motel. The beginning of their love was pretty simple. Triggered by an adventurous behavior of the woman, who was raised in loveless home, the man soon fell too deep in a love affair. He has been too often absent from his home in Paris, where his wife was always preoccupied with the children, and frustrated with the husband. A little secret came into the void of his heart, and it became an incident.

If you are a middle-aged man, I believe you would be fascinated by such an encounter, and you would nod sympathetically with the man's behavior. Men often are in a dilemma between work and family. The husband is dedicated to work only for his family. But the wife does not see him working, and she can not accept him if he always puts home affair second. If there is a woman who adores him at his working, why not wander from the right path? And if a consequence of the affair demands some decision, why not going on?

Such incidents may happen here and there, as the title 'People of No Importance' implies. Its Japanese title is 'The Headlight'. This is also a good title. In the movie, the headlight of the truck is very effectively used. But the more impressive tool in the movie is the cries of the livestock in the heavy mist at the last scene.

During the '50s were made many movies about the proletariat's life (e.g.,"On the Waterfront","The Wages of Fear ",lots of Italian movies,"Look back ...","This Sporting Life "in '63,etc.);this movies were of many sorts.Some of them simply got lost in flawed and unskilled,unprepossessing,unproductive sociology:a boredom.Some were very good;some were average,etc..Some were quite realistic;some were not.The majority of them had leftist sympathies,or,at least,followed the patterns of an ersatz naturalism:the populism.All this scents the suburbs,the promiscuity,the rudeness,the rubbish,the tat,the gross-out.It is below the 19th. century's naturalism.Misfits,proletarians,etc.;this comes from the romantic populist novelists,in the 19th. century,and from the popular drama in literature and cinema,in '20s and '30s:naturalism at its lowest and most fake level.The fact is that many directors wanted to take a look at the proletarian and workmen world;those were the times,and that was the fashion.Some were fakers,others were lucid,honest directors.

Some of this movies were not primarily interested in depicting the proletarians' life as such,but only used it as a frame.Some of them were fine (or,at least,very interesting) pieces of psychology (e. g.,"This Sporting Life " and "On the Waterfront ").

(A few words about the reaction against the multiple forms and avatars of naturalism/populism in the different cultures.In his time,RL Stevenson protested against the naturalism;E. Lovinescu,Camil Petrescu,G. Calinescu,Alexandru George,Radu Petrescu protested against many kinds of naturalism,rusticity,populism,provincialism,rudimentary "realism",etc.,and promoted an urban literature that fits the needs of men with a highly differentiated inner life.)

"Des Gens ..." is a a film not only about proletarians,but also for the proletarians.I have some reservations about this kind of populism.

"Des Gens ..." is the story of a middle-aged man,Jean Viard,a trucker who meets a young waitress and leaves his family so he may be with her.He is very attracted by Clotilde Brachet.Gabin performs a rudimentary,instinctual lug.The story is quite sordid and it begins with some vulgarities;psychologically,it is void.Jean Viard's character is not developed.We do not understand why does he fall for Clotilde all of a sudden.The reason for his actions lacks.(We can assume he is looking for a way out of his family situation,that he needs an evasion.)It is not the morals that brings him back to his family life.The story is rather meaningless,I do not see the interest of some trucker's amorous and familial tribulations.This must be a "slice of life" in the populist taste.("Des Gens ..." is a sample of some kind of pseudo-naturalism:a conventional and ready-made one.)The screenwriter does not know what to do with his characters.The script resorts to some clichés.All this is rather cheap.Gabin's role is not.

After all,"Des Gens..." is an anecdote,deprived of any ambitions,a quite conventional but interesting and well made study.

Some things in this movie are execrably bad and fulsome.The proletarian populist gloomy show is not my kind of show.It is as non-moral as Sadoveanu's naturalistic youth prose."Des Gens ..." is ugly,but I guess it's supposed to look like that.It reeks of cheap alcohol,garages and inns.It indulges in baseness.It strives to capture "the life itself".It tries to be without illusions.It is not.No truth,no life meanings are uttered here,in this brutal way.(For the opposite,check "This Sporting Life " and "The Wages of Fear".)

Some critics say there are three phases in Gabin's career."Des Gens..." belongs to the second phase.In '60,'62,'69,Gabin made other movies with Verneuil.

My mother,who has exquisite tastes,and also enjoys a lot this kind of French '50s populism,liked hugely this movie,for her "Des Gens..." was a knockout.Of course,ANY chance to see Gabin as a lead is unmissable and pleasing("Nothing fake in him",said Mrs. Dietrich!)."Des Gens..." is not listed among the 17 GREAT Gabin movies (from "Pépé Le Moko" and "La Grande Illusion" to "Le Clan Des Siciliens" and "Le Chat".)

"Des Gens..." is Malakian's 9th. movie.

'Des gens sans importance' (= French for 'about unimportant people') is your classical 1950s-film. Shot in black and white, with a well-structured plot and good acting.

Set in a trucker's environment, this film is easily carried by the legendary Jean Gabin. Female lead Francoise Arnoul plays a role that suits her well: that of a single woman disrupting a man's marriage.

'Naturalistic' should be the label here. 'Naturalism' is an art-style developed by the great 19th-century French writer Emile Zola. 'Naturalism' wants to be as realistic as possible, emphasizing on telling everything - in particular the ugly things from life. Having a pessimistic bottom line, 'Naturalism' learns us that human happiness is fragile, and inevitably will pass by.