Gates of the Night

Winter in Paris, 1944. The occupying Germans have fled, Vichy disbanded but the war still rages on and shortages exist. Jean Diego (Yves Montand) exits at the Barbes Rochechouart metro station to deliver bad news to the wife of a friend. It turns out the news is erroneous, however and the wake turns into a celebration as Diego and the family go out to dinner where he finds himself entranced by a woman (Natalie Nathier) he views from the window of the restaurant. She wants out of her marriage and the pair meet later by coincidence. Meanwhile a jealous husband (Pierre Brasseur) searches for her.

Released in 1946, wounds still fresh from the occupation Gates of the Night is more than just a tragic romance but also a recent reminder of the collaboration and betrayal of fellow Frenchman during that period as well as those who benefited from the calamity. Director Marcel Carne shows no sympathy for these exploiters as they attempt to re-write their recent history. Pierre Brasseur, Serge Reggiani and especially Saturnin Fabre convey their complicity denial with unctuous conviction.

Carne and screenwriter add a touch of fantasy with a homeless character believing he is destiny in human form and while it rattles the verismo of the picture it provides additional ambiguity and interest.

Shot in typical graceful Carne style, (with cinematographer, Phillipe Agostini providing some stunning night canvases) the romance (with its "Autmn Leaves" background music) tends to be rather mawkish. Carne also chooses to jump from the film's climactic moment to another almost as pressing only to distract from both.

Romance removed Gates of Night must have engendered a good deal of emotion and soul searching to a French audience and the very recent memory of its occupation.

This isn't exactly bad. It is not a spoiler to reveal that the ending is not a good one, as it is written in many synopses already and openly criticized for its dark depiction of France collaboration with the enemy, it's "realism", and the prioritization of realism over feel-good.

The Criterion Collection writes, "A dreamily beautiful vision of a wintry, nocturnal Paris shortly after the city's postwar liberation. It's there that a former member of the French underground Resistance has an encounter with destiny as he meets a long-lost comrade, villains of the war, a prophetic tramp, and a beautiful woman who will draw him into an inexorable tragedy."

It sounds dreamily beautiful, sure. And it does have its charm- a hazy, film-noir intrigue, with a masterfully created ambience that easily lures in the audience. All the more disappointing then, to leave the theater having been initially captivated by what turns out to be a lackluster story with an unfulfilling conclusion!

Allegorical, or maybe better labeled as an anti-fairy tale, there are several different side stories. Fortunately, these are done quite well, with the characters- including family members and old friends thought to be dead, a gypsy, a homeless man identifying as "Destiny", a neighbor with more than a dozen children, a subway vendor with a daughter that sells croissants out of a briefcase, the friend's son that befriends our protagonist and even takes him to his secret hideout where he looks over a cat- being sketched out with such aptitude from Carné that audiences are quickly enamored. Unfortunately, the anecdotal nature means they can go as quickly as they come- like several couples and strangers on the streets that make their entrance in a single scene or shot, never to be heard from again.

So this ends in tragedy. Great, realism should be appreciated as much as fairy tales. But does almost every character need to be drunk, mopey, or visually mentally disturbed? It is almost as if the entire film has been immersed in a "woe-is-me" fog. Then it ends with the fog not exactly lifting, but sorta evaporating because it has done its duty.

Alas, kudos are still due for an atmospherically delicious film noir, and who can dislike the soundtrack, including an introduction to the popular song "Autumn Leaves" (French: Les feuilles mortes)?

"Les portes de la nuit" is an important movie ,weren't it only because it's Carné's last genuine unquestionable classic ,the last link on the chain which began with "Jenny" in 1936.All these works but one ("hotel du Nord, classic too anyway)" were written by Jacques Prevert :"drole de drame" "quai des brumes ""le jour se leve" "les visiteurs du soir " and the grandiose "les enfants du paradis" which currently makes the IMDb top 250 where it should be ,as it is in France, well ahead of "Leon" "Amelie" or "les quatre cents coups" if there were ,sometimes ,justice in the universe.

After "les enfants du paradis" -which was voted best French film of all time in a poll in 1979 -anything would ne a letdown.That's why the movie met mixed(and even chilly) critical reception when it was released.After the coming of the nouvelle vague whose young Turks used to hate "old hat" Carné ,one could have thought that "les portes de la nuit would be relegated to purgatory eternally.But young genrations have discovered it and a lot of people appreciate it now (as the IMDb rating shows).Carne's eternal subject :love ,true love against the b.......s ,is here given just one night;one night to meet the most beautiful woman in the world ,but also one night to meet the war profiteers,the cowards ,the vile fathers,all that war destroyed .Carné's "realisme" is given a rough ride anyway ,for some settings are almost ...surrealist,evoking Greek tragedy .Prevert/Kosma's words to "les feuilles mortes" are wistful and deeply moving ;"la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment tout doucement sans faire de bruit"(life comes between lovers ,gently,without a sound)

"Les portes de la nuit" ,what a wonderful title.the film begins at dusk,in a metro station that was entirely built in the studio.Carne thoroughly dismissed the label "realisme poetique" because none of his film sets was real (the "hotel du nord" ,the chateau in "les visiteurs du soir" ,the boulevard du crime" in "les enfants du paradis,the list is endless).And the movie ends at dawn ,when Paris awakes.

Carné would never achieve such a peak again.He made commendable works afterward ("Therese Raquin" "les tricheurs" )but those works do not "add up".Still,he remains through his 1936-1945 heyday,one of the absolute masters of the French cinema.

Paris in December of 1945: Liberation, but the war goes on and people scramble to live in a frozen world. Yves Montand takes the metro to tell a friend's wife that he died six months earlier, only to find his friend there. They celebrate, they talk, we are introduced to the usual cast of eccentrics in Marcel Carne's small slice of magical realism and Montand meets the most beautiful girl in the world, Nathalie Nattier, and her traitorous brother, Serge Reggiani.

The cast of supporting characters is up to Carne's usual standards, including Jean Vilard as a tramp who thinks he's destiny, Pierre Brasseur as Miss Nattier's despised husband, Saturnin Fabre -- whom I first encountered in a Max Linder short from 35 years earlier -- as a grasping local junk dealer..... but why go on? Almost everyone is fine, except for the three actors at the center of this movie: Montand, Nattier and Reggiani, all of whom simply don't measure up.

Perhaps this is because the Montand and Nattier roles were originally written for Jean Gabin and Marlene Dietrich; when they dropped out, the roles had to be recast and the results were... unfortunate. Neither actor could project the world-weary gravitas required, and the entire movie, which might have been magnificent, is merely very good, carried by the supporting cast. Yet it makes one wish for the movie done right.

Making my way through the films of Marcel Carné I come at last to this, which, after just watching Les Enfants du Paradis, can't help but feel somewhat lesser, and indeed the film does feel like less than the sum of its parts. There's some wonderful stretches but for it to work it needed to pull all of the strands of story together in a satisfying way by the end, and it doesn't, it just misses the mark. The pacing also drags in parts, particularly towards the end.

As often with foreign language films from the past, the English subtitles are poorly translated and unclear, making the point and subtext of certain passages hard to follow.

The fabric of the film is glorious, though, with a magical mood and ravishing photography. The premise of fated lovers is very nicely evoked, if not satisfactorily executed. Still very worth checking out though.