Le Samouraï

1967, France, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

A rewatch, to see the restored version, which looks glorious from the wonderful first shot to the last. Pretty much the concentration of both Melville and Delon, even if not necessarily my favourite film by/with either.

La Poison

1951, France, directed by Sacha Guitry

One of the most extraordinarily misogynistic films I've seen, as well as being very much of the postwar tradition of bitter, black, self-lacerating social examination in French film (the two may be linked, of course; several of those key French noirs are hardly kind to their central female characters, who are at times depicted as taking advantage of the men in their lives -- men rarely seem to have to take responsibility for themselves). 

Ginette Vincendeau's Criterion piece that accompanies the DVD of the film is extremely useful in providing the context for Guitry's tone, without ever defending the writer/director. 

Of note in the background: a rare non-comic role for Louis de Funès.

Les Invisibles

2018, France, directed by Louis-Julien Petit

A picture that walks its walk, not only depicting the reaction of a group of women to the closure of their shelter, but actually casting women from homeless backgrounds in many of the key roles. While it certainly hits beats from the Full Monty school, sometimes pretty insistently, some of the spikier edges feel as though they've come from genuine collaboration between cast and director, and those fragments give the film its most significant charge.

Le Jeu

2018, France, directed by Fred Cavayé

Although very competently made (or rather re-made), and visually slick, the picture has little meaningful to say about the consequences of our modern technological obsession -- centered on a game wherein the characters allow the contents of their phones to be shared, the picture is all plot mechanics, no commentary.

La Fiancée du pirate

1969, France, directed by Nelly Kaplan

I thought that Yves Boisset's Dupont Lajoie was pretty acid in its analysis of French society, but Nelly Kaplan's first feature film is at least as bleak, and certainly more thorough in its merciless dissection of the mores of its small-town setting. At times, Kaplan's wide-ranging condemnation recalls Simenon, though Kaplan is far more interested in society's view of women than Simenon ever was. The film constantly surprises in its tone, veering from the cynical to the carnivalesque, with Bernadette Lafont providing a central performance of exceptional energy and frankness that still feels fresh today, even if the character's turning-of-the-tables might take a different form in 2019.

Dupont Lajoie

1975, France, directed by Yves Boisset

Boisset had a decent run of films in the 1970s, taking a fairly left-of-centre perspective, with this perhaps his most acid picture, a disturbing portrait of French society and its dealings with outsiders, specifically France's Arab population, though other, nearer neighbours' "true" Frenchness also comes under the microscope as la France profonde defends its interests. Jean Carmet is excellent, and quite disturbing, in an atypical role, while Isabelle Huppert lights things up in a fairly early screen appearance. 

Mollenard

1938, France, directed by Robert Siodmak

An assured film from Siodmak's French period, though with a somewhat unusual structure -- it almost feels like two different films, albeit both featuring the same protagonist, with the capacious frame a tale of domestic spite and poison and the inset a rousing sketch of colonial skulduggery in Shanghai (a pretty common backdrop at the time). Harry Baur is in fine form as the titular Mollenard, a merchant marine captain facing ruin and shame, a circumstance that brings every dark aspect of his relationship with his wife, played by Gabrielle Dorziat, to the fore. The film rigs the game somewhat, though, by making Dorziat's character so utterly unsympathetic -- the same rather unpleasant trick Renoir played in La Chienne -- that the audience is cast on the side of the criminal by default. Still, the downbeat ending manages to channel something of the spirit of Quai des brumes, made the same year, with the two films also sharing Eugen Schüfftan as director of photography.

Pièges

1939, France, directed by Robert Siodmak

French-period Siodmak, and very brisk fun: seen shortly after Sirk's remake, as Lured/Personal Column, the debt owed by the later film is a good deal more obvious, with certain sequences essentially shot-for-shot reproductions, though the actors give each film a nice variation in flavor. 

A nos amours

1983, France, directed by Maurice Pialat

Perhaps the most unsettling film in the Pialat canon, in large part because of the director's extraordinary onscreen presence. The genuine rigours, both emotional and physical, through which the actors are put are very apparent here, with them forced to react to Pialat-as-actor's incredibly unpredictability and even violence, not least in the extraordinary dinner-party scene where his character returns to the family home after a period of exile and throws what seems like a new equilibirum utterly off-balance. Pialat is a terrific, though challenging, actor in his own right, and on the strength of this film it's not hard to see why others might not have wanted to direct him, though he seems to have enjoyed considerable loyalty from several actors who returned several times to his sets.

Mélodie en sous-sol

1963, France, directed by Henri Verneuil

A weaker entry in the Gabin canon, though never without interest, not least as the first of three films uniting Gabin with Alain Delon, cast very much as the youthful rebel. The opening, set in under-construction Sarcelles, is quite fascinating, with Gabin's character returning from prison to a transformed landscape; the oppressive effect of the new construction is reminiscent of the tone of Gabin's slightly later, and much more challenging, Le Chat, set against a similar background. While the locations in the opening going make a real impact, the subsequent blend of location and studio shooting is very rough-edged, with the studio sets so obviously artificial.

Touchez pas au grisbi

1953, France, directed by Jacques Becker

One of the true marvels of the French gangster genre, with its own codes and conventions, quite different to the American counterparts -- impossible to imagine the wonderful scene of two men sharing a late-night sandwich, never mind the subsequent scene when they brush their teeth, in an American movie of the period. As magnetic as Gabin was in the pre-war years, he's rarely been as magnificent as on this occasion -- every moment he's offscreen you sense his influence, even with the wonderful supporting cast (Dary, Ventura, Moreau, Frankeur and more).

Deux hommes dans la ville

1973, France/Italy, directed by José Giovanni

The final film featuring both Gabin and Delon, with the older star ceding much of the running time to his younger, though already established, counterpart; indeed, Gabin is offscreen for a great deal of the film, which focuses on Delon's character, recently released from prison and attempting to go straight (Gabin plays his parole officer). Gabin is in peak avuncular mode, the éminence grise who has seen it all, though even then he doesn't have Delon's special line in world-weariness. The film is blunt on the impact of prison and the challenges of rehabilitation, though director José Giovanni had his own complex, up-close relationship to the institution of incarceration -- he willingly collaborated with the German occupation, and was involved in various gangland activities, ending up in prison for more than eleven years before beginning his second act as a novelist and filmmaker while carefully occluding the less savoury details of his past. While the film is ultimately less profound than Giovanni would like us to believe, some of the details on the French legal system are piquant, while Gérard Depardieu and Bernard Giraudeau make notable early appearances.

Maigret tend un piège

1958, France, directed by Jean Delannoy

The first of Gabin's outing as Maigret, and the strongest of the trio -- certainly more distinctive than Gilles Grangier's routine contribution, which used Gabin well but did little more.  Delannoy, by contrast, creates a strong sense of atmosphere, particularly emphasizing the claustrophobia of the corner of Paris being terrorized by the events of the film. More surprising is the mobility of his camera, especially in the early stages of the film -- elegant movements that create neat moments of visual shorthand, while also, on occasion, underpinning the sense of menace felt by the characters. The film's a fine example of Gabin's ability to seamlessly play both sides of the law in this period: there's not a great deal of difference between his Maigret and, say, Max from Touchez pas au grisbi, with both characters elegant, methodical, and willing to pause to savour a decent sandwich.

Belle de jour

1967, France, directed by Luis Buñuel

Voyage à Biarritz

1963, France, directed by Gilles Grangier

This is a contribution to the Late Films Blogathon hosted, as ever, by David Cairns at Shadowplay (I think this is the eighth year I've managed to put something together, despite the increasing competition of work and children...)

As is rather common with late films, Arletty's final cinematic performance was not among her most glorious, with a pretty thin supporting role in a routine Fernandel vehicle. It was one of four films The Great White Teeth of French cinema released that year -- and only one, La Cuisine au beurre, proved memorable. Indeed, Fernandel himself was on the wane, relatively speaking, soon to be eclipsed in the popularity stakes by late-bloomer Louis de Funès and His Rubber Face, along with longtime, less-rubbery, Bourvil -- and the contrast between the modest, black and white Voyage à Biarritz and films like Le Gendarme de St Tropez or Le Corniaud, with their impressive colour production values, seems to underline the changing of the guard. 

By the time of filming on Le Voyage à Biarritz, Arletty could barely see -- her vision had been in decline for some time, and she had suffered an eyecare accident of some kind earlier in the year, switching eyedrops intended for the left eye into the right and vice versa, which sounds vaguely comical if the outcome hadn't been so terrible. Given her limitations, many of her scenes have her sitting or standing in one place, or being gently escorted by her fellow cast members. Indeed, there's some suggestion that she was essentially hired as a kind of favour by old friends; she and Fernandel appeared together on stage and screen in Fric-Frac in the 1930s, while Gilles Grangier, another child of the Parisian streets, had directed her in the 1952 vehicle L'Amour Madame, in which she plays a version of herself. She relied on such gestures of kindness for most of her postwar life, dying in the most modest of circumstances in 1992. 

When the actress first appears here, you could be forgiven for not even realizing it was Arletty, so little does her character have to do. It's all a far cry from her indelible early performances, stealing scenes, indeed entire films, from more established performers in the  late 1930s. It's hard to believe now, but Hôtel du Nord, Arletty's real arrival on the scene, was designed around Annabella, a popular star of the time. Arletty waltzes in, wipes the floor with precious Annabella and, not incidentally, creates an entirely new type of female lead in French film (Louis Jouvet isn't too shabby either -- you ache for them to have worked together again). 

It was in that film that Arletty uttered what is probably the single most famous word in French cinema, atmosphère. A little of that quality wouldn't go amiss in her final screen appearance: the location shooting in Fréjus and Toulon can't hold a candle to the magic Marcel Carné whipped up on his sets. Grangier wasn't in the same league as Carné, of course, and while he's able to construct a fairly solid narrative, even by his standards this is a pretty thin affair. Grangier's collaborations with Jean Gabin are often much stronger; while it's often been suggested that Gabin dominated his directors as his career advanced, he may also have extracted better films from them on occasion. 

But what of Arletty's final work, then? Fernandel stars as the master of a small train station in southern France, with a son who's an engineer in London. Arletty plays Fernande, the owner/operator of the local café, and with her mischievous tone and mildly exotic background, the locals are quick to believe Fernande and Fernandel might be having an affair, perhaps centered on their shared syllables.  Grangier does a nice job of conveying the lightning-speed spread of gossip among the townsfolk, and there's a definite glint in the Arlettian eye when she gets a sniff of the townsfolk's silliness, the one moment when you see the youthful zest emerge from under the accretion of the years. Even the old voice, that most beguiling of instruments, gets a dusting off, as she rolls a couple of Michel Audiard pearls around on the tongue. 

Sadly, once that segment of the plot is resolved, Arletty barely gets a look in -- the film whizzes off to London for a few quick shots of Fernandel in front of the tourist sights, and some awkward assaults on the English language. The cross-Channel comedy is supposed to stem from the fact that Fernandel, who has won an all-expenses-paid trip as part of a promotion, wants to see his son but can't give his publicity-minded handlers the slip. It's an awkward joke spun out far too long, and the film is more assured, and more funny, on French soil. The resolution -- spurred by a kind of train ex machina -- seems to have come in from an entirely different film, though, suddenly pouring a dose of cold water on the earlier hijinks, even if Fernandel's horselike features are put to good use in several long-faced scenes that precede the inevitable all's-well finale. 

There's no fanfare to play Arletty out, with Fernandel and his much-used smile taking us through the final frames. The actress did a little voiceover work in the following decades, but largely retreated from the world before blazing through the public consciousness once again in the aftermath of her death. I happened to be in France when she died, and all of the newspapers and magazines rushed tributes into press, sometimes dedicating entire issues to Arletty's place in French cinematic and social history. In death, at least, her postwar rehabilitation in the eyes of the public was complete, and many people assembled at the real Hôtel du Nord, a place that Carné had never sullied with his camera or his star, who was perhaps the one true, glorious discovery of his career.  

Incidentally, one person's late film is almost inevitably someone else's early-career gig: Anna Massey appears here in her first big-screen appearance after Peeping Tom, about as extreme a contrast as could be imagined, while Michel Galabru, about to hit the big time as a de Funès sidekick, has one of his early roles of substance after a decade of bit-part graft. 

French Cancan

1955, France, directed by Jean Renoir

Renoir reunites with Gabin after a fifteen-year gap, with the actor in a classic later-period Gabin role, roguish yet charming, and almost startling in the rich colours that Renoir employs. Though French in its frame of reference -- the songs, the locations -- there's an echo of classic Hollywood putting-on-a-show spectaculars, albeit with an air of melancholy that's entirely specific to Renoir's film (the wonderful scene where Gabin relaxes backstage, satisfied that things have come together but fully aware the public has no need to see him).

Les Enfants terribles

1950, France, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

I had forgotten how intoxicating this film is at times, and that sensation grows as the movie unspools -- the final half hour or so really breaks free from reality at times, and yet Melville's mastery of tone ensures that it never acquires the oddball texture of, say, Chabrol's Les Godelureaux. I found myself completing forgetting my surroundings as the world of the film enclosed me, only to be shocked out of it again in the finale. There are some very interesting names in the credits, too, whether it's Henri Decaë shooting his second feature or future directors Michel Drach and Claude Pinoteau, with the former seeming rather closer to Melville in terms of his approach/output.

Quai des brumes

1938, France, directed by Marcel Carné (aka Port of Shadows)

A film I hadn't seen since college, and it blew me away to see it again now -- the intensity of feeling, the gorgeous photography, the use of sets with a judicious addition of location shooting, Gabin at his pre-war peak, the quite extraordinary support from Simon, Morgan, Brasseur, Le Vigan, and perhaps most of all the willingness to allow scenes to build and build (several of the sequences are exceptionally extended, quite rare in modern cinema except in something like Tarantino's deliberately affected approach). 

Baisers volés

1968, France, directed by François Truffaut (aka Stolen Kisses)

I blow hot and cold on Truffaut, but this, the third of the Antoine Doinel films, is generally very charming, and has a genuine feel for the time and place -- offscreen, it's clear that something is going on socially despite the occasional preciousness of the characters and their interactions, which is of course no accident given that it was filmed in the early months of 1968 and released after the events of May.

L'Eau froide

1994, France, directed by Olivier Assayas

A formative film for me, one I saw originally on the big screen in November 1994, and it was as impressive as I recalled, the large screen really enhancing the immersive experience, particularly in the lengthy, and quite extraordinary, party sequence. It's interesting, though, how the memory plays tricks -- that sequence looms so large in my mind that I had forgotten just how much of the film precedes it, and how much additional detail we get on the lives of the protagonists. I had forgotten entire sections, too, such as the extended scene in the police station where Virginie Ledoyen speaks with Jean-Pierre Darroussin (indeed, I had no recollection that the actor was in the film). The film is incredibly rich in detail, feeling very much of that post-1968 moment in which it is set -- the challenge to parental and social authorities (schools, doctors), the integration of various immigrant populations, the hints at the desirability of a return to the land, the apparent hopelessness of youth in the Pompidou years, etc. There are details of performance and filming structure, too, that make a big impression -- the repetition of the motif of handing something from one hand to another (records, money, a hash pipe), the way that Jackie Berroyer fretfully holds his hands together, even the contrast between how young and old dress and interact, as well as the bone-deep chill of the weather (people putting on coats even inside, never mind in the frigid final sequences).