L'air de Paris

There are interesting films in Carné's post Prévert career:"Thérèse Raquin" and "les tricheurs",to name but two.But this one is not among them.The screenplay,written by Carné and Jacques Sigurd -who was also Yves Allégret's best script writer- is rather weak and the dialogs seem to have been made" in the style of Jacques Prévert",but few lines are really potent.This is the clichéd story of a poor young man of whom a former boxer(Gabin) wants to make a champion.But his wife(Arletty) is not prepared to it and gets in the way.Besides ,the relationship between the poor lad -an orphan who always loses-and a posh girl (à la "Rose and Jack" in a movie whose name escapes my mind)never rings true.

15 years had passed since Carné directed Gabin and Arletty in his masterpiece "le jour se lève" and time had really taken its toll.Both seem jaded,particularly Arletty whose part is thankless .You should try Julien Duvivier's "sous le ciel de Paris" instead of this.That's really old hat!

L'Air de Paris, a film about the dreams and realities of a young boxer by the name of André Menard (Lesaffre) is set in 1950's Paris. The film starts rather slowly and the plot only picks up towards the middle of the film as André and his bourgeois love interest Corinne (Daëms) begin to get closer together. The difference of class status between the two makes compelling viewing, especially when Corinne attends a boxing match to watch André fight, largely frequented by the rowdy, working class Parisian faithful. The boxing scenes are convincing with Jean Gabin playing the role of André's coach effectively as the wise old ex-professional. In the earlier scenes of the film, Gabin and Arletty really connect and seem very natural alongside each other. The underlying theme is of the internal struggle of André and Corinne to break free from their social backgrounds and from being stereotyped by society and their close friends. This film is a tale of two classes.

L'Air De Paris is a French film directed by a well known French director who in his day was apparently responsible for some brilliant pieces of French cinema. Now I have very little knowledge in French cinema and am truly unaware of what brilliant French cinema is. I have to say this film is certainly not it.

The film is about an ageing boxing coach who is considering giving it all up as he struggles to find the champion he longs to train. His hope completely vanishes when his best chance dies at a young age. However he meets a man who claims to once have been a good boxer and the coach decides that perhaps there is one last ray of light.

He trains up this young man but he is not particularly great at the sport and our trainer realises he has his work cut out. Meanwhile part of the reason for this boxers struggle is because he is in love with a beautiful woman. One who is out of his league and is of a much superior class. The coach must convince his boxer that boxing should come first and love can't stand in the way.

Our boxer makes it as champion but in this time his love for the woman has grown and he refuses to take part in any more events as he wants to be with this woman. The trainer must do what he can to change his student's mind, claiming that it was a woman that ruined his chance when he was a boxer and he doesn't want to see this man's potential slip away in the same way his did.

Straight away I had an issue with this film. The coach deciding to take this man on without looking at how good he is and without asking for any money is ridiculous and then when he steps into the ring he is shocked to see how bad he is. Well if he had watched him first he would have realised this. In reality an established boxing coach would at least do some research; it just seemed far too easy to be able to move the film along. To me this man's boxing was bad, but as far as I know the director could have been intending on his style to be good. I just don't know. Put it this way Audley Harrison would knock this man down in one. When it comes to his title fight the match seems to be played out in real time and it is just so dull. It isn't boxing; it looks like two drunken louts having a scuffle in a car park. If you have ever seen some Charlie Chaplin films, the one's where he is boxing, then you can imagine what these fight scenes looked like.

There is also very little story for us to grasp a hold of. I'm still not sure if it is about the boxing or love and which one of the two's story we are following. I found myself not caring for either. So much of it seemed completely unrealistic. The boxing, the love, even the friendships. Nothing was put in place and nothing made any sense.

There were a few scenes I did like. In the opening five minutes there are a few witty comments that did have me laughing and a couple of scenes where the power shifted between the boxer and love interest were pleasant but overall there just wasn't enough in this film for me to get excited about. I will admit I wasn't expecting too much but after doing a little research on the director I thought that perhaps I could have been in for a bit of a surprise, I can tell you I wasn't.

I've not seen many French films and have not been a fan of the few I have. I am unsure as to whether this director made the ones I have seen but if he is one of the best in France then I won't be watching any more French films anytime soon. A poor effort.

Following his break with Jacques Prévert, the post-war films of Marcel Carné, with the notable exception of 'Les Tricheurs', were to receive a decidedly mixed response and he was pretty well written off by the New Ripple brigade. The original screenplay for his masterpiece of Poetic Realism 'Le Jour se leve' was written by Jacques Viot whose novel 'La Choute' has here been adapted by another Jacques, this time Jacques Sigurd.

Carné has called upon his tried and trusted team of cinematographer Roger Hubert, composer Maurice Thiriet and editor Henri Rust whose editing of the film's only boxing scene is exceptional. He has also reunited Jean Gabin and Arletty, both of whom enrich every film in which they appear. The younger generation is represented by Carné's 'protegé' Roland Lesaffre, as an aspiring boxer who punches above his weight when falling for the society girl of Marie Daems. Theirs is a relationship that cannot last and although neither Monsieur Lesaffre nor Mlle Daems were destined to set the screen alight, they convince here under Carné's sensitive direction. Some might detect in the amitié between Victor and André an element of homophilia but that of course is down to the individual viewer.

Arletty's fall from grace as a result of 'horizontal collaboration' during the Occupation has been well documented but her no-nonsense style of acting never ceased to impress, whatever the material. Gabin as an ex-boxer, complete with cauliflower ears, makes the role his own and is simply one of the 'truest' actors ever to walk on to a sound stage.

Compared to other films based around the Ring, this one is lightweight to be sure but in its own quiet way, still packs a punch.

Carné, a director of finesse and innate humanity, remained philosophical about his negative reviews. "I always run the risk of falling on my face, which has in fact happened."

This was the last movie that Jean Gabin and Arletty made together for Carné, the absence of Jacques Prévert as screenwriter (as he was on Le Jour Se lève) shows, the plot is rather confused and indecisive. Nevertheless, the photography on location in 1950s Paris is beautiful, many shots look like Brassai photographs, and the climactic scene in the seedy local boxing-ring has some of the same atmosphere as the great scenes in the popular theatre in Carné's masterpiece, "Les Enfants du Paradis". Arletty, by then over 50, is experimenting with playing a less glamorous, rather frumpy part, but she is still fascinating to watch. The thrill is in the ambiguous relationship between Gabin, as the ageing boxing coach, and his blond, sometimes hysterical protégé. There is an extraordinary scene in which he goes to get him back, when the boy has run away and is living in a run-down Algerian hostel. It isn't a great film, on the level of Hotel du nord or Les Portes de La Nuit, but it is well worth seeing for anyone curious about the French cinema in the period between the Occupation and the beginning of the Nouvelle Vague. It is available on video in France.