Les enfants du paradis (1945)

aka Children of Paradise

D: Marcel Carné / 190m

Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Marcel Herrand, Pierre Renoir, Maria Casares, Louis Salou, Gaston Modot, Fabien Loris

When I first heard about Les enfants du paradis I was fifteen and working my way through that year’s edition of Halliwell’s Film Guide, picking out all the 5-star movies and adding them to a list of “must-see” movies that I was compiling.  It was a long list as it turned out, and although Halliwell’s review was overwhelmingly positive, there were so many others that Les enfants didn’t stand out from the crowd.  Slowly but surely – this was in the days before video – I worked my way through the list, until around a couple of years later, Les  enfants was given an airing on BBC2.  It was on a Bank Holiday afternoon, and if memory serves, was shown with a fifteen-minute programme added during the interval.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  The setting was unusual: Paris’s Boulevard du Crime in the 1830s and 40s, and the background was intriguing as well: the life and loves and personal trials of a theatre troupe and associated individuals.  The sets, the costumes, the hair and make up, all had an impact on me that was as unexpected as it was welcome.  Up until then, these aspects of the movie making process and end product hadn’t made much of an impression on me; I took it all for granted.  But having an idea of the difficulty the filmmakers had in making the movie made me more aware of these details, and so, for the first time I found myself watching a movie where the details became as important as the overall mise-en-scène.

There are times still when I watch Les enfants du paradis and find myself gazing in awe at the level of detail in any one frame, even a closeup.  And then there are the characters, the alluring, love-weary Garance (Arletty), the tragic-faced mime Debureau (Barrault), the carefree, preening actor Lemaître (Brasseur), the suave yet amoral Lacenaire (Herrand), the jealously scheming Nathalie (Casares), all of them so memorable and so superbly played.  Seeing these characters live and breathe on screen, seeing them behave credibly and realistically (if a trifle theatrically as well) was an enduring joy to watch.  I became swept up in the growing tumult of emotions as the plot unfolded and the various story lines blossomed, as the welter of finely observed detail complimented the highs and lows of the script.  By the interval, when everything seems to say “there will be no happy ending here”, I was desperate to see the rest of the movie, and cursed the BBC for adding an extra programme at its middle.

Of course, the second part was as captivating as the first, and the denouement as affecting and powerful as could have been hoped for.  When the movie ended I gave silent thanks to director Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert for making such an enchanting, magical, gripping experience, and under such incredible circumstances: filming in Vichy France at a time when all the materials needed to create the Boulevard  du Crime were being directed towards the war effort, somehow Carné and his team achieved a small miracle in constructing a set that looks so realistic you can believe the characters actually inhabit it when the camera isn’t rolling.

Having seen Les enfants du paradis several more times now, I still get carried away with the love stories, the dizzying photography of the opening minutes (courtesy of Roger Hubert), the threats of danger and violence that lurk at every turn, the peaceful moments that add soothing counterpoints to the frenzy of emotions on display, the disarming elegance of Arletty and Barrault’s performances, Carné’s amazing ability to frame and depict each scene with such skill and dexterity, and the perfect harmony between the visuals and Prévert’s exquisite dialogue.  This is – like the two previous movies discussed in my Top 10 – a masterpiece, pure and simple.  It’s often described or advertised as the “best French film ever made”, and while I think that title belongs to Napoleon (1927), let’s qualify it in order to give it its proper due: it’s the “best French language film ever made”.

Rating: 9/10 – miles upon miles ahead of every other historical romantic drama ever made and one of the true masterpieces of French cinema; a movie to lose yourself in over and over again and to never tire of.

NOTE: The trailer below is an extended promotional piece from 1945.