Falbalas

Raymond Rouleau is a successful Parisian fashion designer who sleeps with his models and then dumps them -- as lovers; he keeps them around professionally. He's preparing the show for his spring line, and it's already high summer, so he's naturally frazzled when his friend, fabric merchant Jean Chevrier, introduces his fiancee, Micheline Presle. This time, Rouleau realizes, it's love.

It's a world that looks familiar to anyone who's seen the recent THE PHANTOM THREAD, a tiny world of professional obsession and power. Director Jacques Becker uses techniques that suggest the burgeoning film noir, like the femme fatale, telling the story in flashback, and so forth, but we're still in dark magical realism territory. The DP is the much admired Nicolas Hayer, who shoots the women as old and a bit weary looking, except for some key scenes. It's shocking to see Mlle Presle looking considerably older than her 24 at the time of shooting. She's till around as I write this, about to turn 100 next month. She hasn't been seen on the screen since 2014.

Weinsteinism isn't limited to only movie industry. It is quite pervasive elsewhere. Where the physical attractiveness is part of the job-description, it is a just a part of the life.

In real life, with full knowledge that it would attract both bricks and bats, in my opinion in making of Weinstein, he was only partly responsible. A lot of responsibility would go to the aspiring persons, who made him believe that he can do anything and get away with.

Here is exactly same take on another of the glamour industry, the haute couture.

The chief of the fashion house, Raymond Rouleau (Philippe Clarence), practices Weinsteinism, and quite openly, and without any hesitations on who the target is, even his best friend's fiancee Micheline Presle (Micheline Lafaurie), who has come expressly, to marry and that too very shortly, not excepted. Where it would all end, who will get whom, is not kept in suspense (in fact is disclosed the moment the titles are over). I won't go much into the plot of the movie, which had been covered in other reviews.

This, the Weinsteinism, isn't uncommon in movies, even on screen, especially Hollywood, where the Heroes get away with all their escapades, and in the end (almost) repentant heroine comes to him, whatever profession the hero may be (from conman, to Lawyer). The Hayes code (of morality) didn't apply to men, it was reserved for women.

This movie is with a slight difference. It highlights this aspect, but neither castigates it, nor condones it. It rather tries to show the effect it could have on different people. The best friend whose betrothed he has seduced, the seduced fiancee, his ex-flames, his motherly-associate etc, and even on himself. It also highlights another mind-set of these people "I should be the one to walk out" though that had been probably spoken only once, but what happens if it is she, the women, who walked out on them? That formed the crux of the movie.

It would be wrong to claim that when the amber is dying, but not yet dead, and she walks out, it would blaze again, as it did here. But it won't be very rare either, considering it would deeply wound male ego, and till the specific member of male-declared-inferior class had been subjugated again, he won't rest at peace. Once she is, naturally he would again allow ash to pile up.

This facet, some times spoken, other times displayed, and the balanced approach, in bringing it out, puts the movie in above average category. There are no unnatural, blind, forgive-and-forget. Even if some one is ready to forgive, the director doesn't let us believe, nor the on screen characters believe, that he or she would forget, definitely not permanently.

The first of Jacques Becker's films to bear the credit "Un film de Jacques Becker", thus attesting to his growing stature within the industry.

Having essayed a French equivalent of 'Cold Comfort Farm' during the Occupation with 'Goupi Mains Rouges', Becker next made a characteristic about turn to provide a bit of glossy escapism shot before the Liberation but released in 1945 with this hothouse drama set within the frivolous and insulated world of Parisian haute couture. Christian Dior's 'New Look' being still two years away, the woman all wear wartime padded suits and terrifying frizzy big hair, through the midst of which struts the fox in this henhouse, designer Raymond Rouleau, who exercises droit du seigneur with a new model played by a baby-faced Micheline Presle before he comes a spectacular cropper when he becomes genuinely besotted with her.

"Falbalas" in Becker's career,is the follow-up to "Goupi Mains-Rouges". The second one took place in a very peasant milieu,the former introduces Philippe,a Parisian top designer,as well as a heartbreaker.(Raymond Rouleau who would direct "les sorcières de Salem",from Arthur Miller with Yves Montand and Simone Signoret)The two works could not be more different,and it's hard to believe they were made by the same director.

So the Don Juan falls in love with his friend Daniel's Micheline (Micheline Presles) and seduces her.But she will discover how selfish and frivolous he is and she will leave him.He realizes that he did love her deeply and it's too late.

Here lies the connection between "Falbalas" and "Goupi mains rouges".Philippe becomes mad ,dances with a dummy dressed up as a bride.This recalls Goupi-Tonkin,one character of the precedent work,but it's not as convincing:Philippe's lunacy appears too abruptly,in a totally unexpected way,whereas Goupi-Tonkin's one grows little by little to a stunning and logical final.

Thanks to the two leads,"Falbalas " is nevertheless a commendable work. The best is the documentary side,the depiction of the fashion world.And even if the ending seems unlikely,Becker has such a fine way of filming it!

This is my first Jacques Becker film but I don't think it will be my last. I like the way this director tells his story of obsessive love, undercutting the innate heaviness of such a theme by including numerous interesting Parisian quirks and detours, like the merry go round in the Tuileries that evoke the louche couturier Clarence's childhood, an upper crust French family that provokes and teases each other while aggressively playing table tennis, and the chic restaurant where Clarence feels so at home flaunting his latest conquest. I also enjoy Becker's numerous forays into the fevered, chauvinistic world of Parisian fashion design where an abusive, charming man at the apex presides over an army of female employees who both dislike and adore him, in equal measure. Finally, I like the performance of Raymond Rouleau as Clarence. It is so good that I almost felt sorry for the callous butthole who has finally fallen in love, as opposed to falling in lust...with his best friend's wife to be, natch. And as the object of his affection Micheline Presles, who I'm happy to say celebrated her 100th b-day last month, is properly beautiful, sexy and innocent and with just enough integrity to frustrate Clarence and cause him grief at the end. Also good were Gabrille Dorziat and Jeanne Fusier-gir as Clarence's two senior worker drones, the later kind of channeling in looks and manner a Gallic Thelma Ritter (not a bad thing!).

So why a 9 instead of a 10? Proceedings become too Grand Guignol at the end with whatever is the French equivalent of scenery chewing rearing its histrionic head and the love scenes with Rouleau and Presles have a tendency to drag. Becker wisely soft peddled them.

Bottom line: Call me Freddy Philistine, but I liked it better than "Phantom Thread". A minus.