Les Enfants du Paradis (PG)

Timeless classic of French cinema, available on Blu-ray and DVD from Monday 17th September.

Les Enfants du Paradis (PG) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Voted ‘The best French film ever made’ by the French Film Academy, this stunningly restored edition of Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) is a sumptuous cinematic treat.  Garance, a courtesan and actress iconically played by Arletty, one of the great beauties of the twentieth century, is pursued by four very different yet equally amorous gents.

Principal among them and the only one for whom Garance has any reciprocal feeling, is the unappreciated but brilliant mime-artist Baptiste.  At their first meeting, the mime uses his performance skills to demonstrate Garance’s innocence when she is falsely accused of pickpocketing.  Their paths diverge however when Baptiste hesitates in wooing her, and they each settle for loveless relationships whilst longing that their paths might cross again.

Jean-Louis Barrault plays Baptiste, a character modelled on real life nineteenth century mime-artist Jean-Gaspard Deburau, whom Barrault had been fascinated by ever since hearing how he had beaten a street-boy to death for taunting him in front of his family.  The other male characters are largely also based on real people, such as intellectual criminal Pierre-François Lacenaire, who stakes his own claim to Garance’s heart.  The romance is a catalyst allowing these disparate characters to be explored in one story.

Director Marcel Carné is known for his affinity with the working classes, and though Les Enfants du Paradis is about the theatre, it is also about the paying masses on who’s dreams and fantasies actors and writers live.  The cheap-ticket holding common folk are even affectionately referred to as ‘the gods’, as their laughs and gasps at whatever drama unfolds on stage is acknowledged as the theatre’s true lifeblood.  The balconies where these ‘gods’ are seated were referred to colloquially as ‘paradis’, hence the actors are their dependent offspring.

The Oscar nominated script by Jacques Prévert is a soul-searching, despairing treasure-trove of wit and humour, with dazzling dialogue full of memory-branding lines.  The soft, abstract-shadow filled cinematography is an interesting contrast to the razor-sharp imagery that is in fashion today, and Maurice Thiriet’s fabulously restored score is a frenzy of orchestral emotion.

Many will likely be daunted at the prospect of an old black and white French film that runs over three hours and takes place largely in the confines of a theatre setting, but anyone who gives it a half a chance is sure to have their hearts won over.  It is unashamedly melodramatic but uproariously entertaining, not to mention technically dazzling and even something of a miracle, given that it was shot during the years of France’s Nazi occupation.

The anguish filled finale is every bit as much a sledgehammer to the heart as those of better known dark classics like The Third Man and Brazil.  At one point a character muses “Audiences want something new... novelty, what does that mean?”  Les Enfants du Paradis could be that something for present day audiences, a rediscovered relic of cinema from another time and place.

Blu-ray & DVD extras: Theatre, Love and War: Making Les Enfants du Paradis, Once Upon a Time... Les Enfants du Paradis, The Restoration, The Restoration - Before and After, Trailer

A Bronx Tale (15)

Brilliant mob film from Robert De Niro, out on Blu-ray Monday 18th!

A Bronx Tale (15) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

It’s a tragic truth that Robert De Niro’s rich and enthralling directorial debut A Bronx Tale is one of the lesser seen gangster pictures.  Upon release in 1993 it sorely under-performed at the box office (having Jurassic Park to compete with), and has since fallen behind such titans as Goodfellas and The Godfather as far as must-see mafia movies go.  This month’s welcome Blu-ray re-release is a chance to right this wrong, and put this mighty work back where it belongs with the best of the best.

We meet Bronx-dwelling Italian American Calogero at the age of nine.  He’s a typical school kid, memorising baseball trivia and testing his parents’ boundaries.  He develops a curiosity for local mob boss Sonny, who hangs out on the corner of his street, and he tries to sneak peaks at him at the bar next door, which his parents have deemed strictly out of bounds.  De Niro plays Calogero’s father Lorenzo, a hardworking and honest ‘stand up guy’, to use the vernacular.  When his son’s fascination with the gangster develops into a father-son-like relationship, Lorenzo becomes all the more protective, which in turn drives Calogero further away from him.  Sonny even gives the boy a new name, ‘C’, and soon C finds himself earning more than his father by running seemingly harmless errands for his new mentor.

As a director De Niro simultaneously pays homage to Martin Scorsese, from who he clearly learnt so much, and sets himself apart as something new and different.  He takes Scorsese’s energetic and wild style but gives it a twist, removing the darkness and injecting a child-like playfulness, perfectly suited to a story told from a child’s point of view.  As well as playing Sonny, Chazz Palminteri adapted the script from his own play, which premiered in 1990 to critical acclaim.  The story offers an unusual and refreshing perspective on the often over-glamourised world of mobster life, with C struggling to figure out whether Sonny is the tough guy and his father the sucker, or vice versa.

The soundtrack gives A Bronx Tale extra heart and soul; a dizzying selection of Doo-wop and rock n’ roll making the film every bit as operatic and exhilarating as any of Scorsese’s.  The cinematography is authentic and beautiful, and with a couple of small exceptions the performances are more than worthy.  The conclusion, featuring an apt cameo played to wise-guy perfection, is just the cherry on top of a really scrumptious celluloid cake.

If you’re a gangster flicks junky, or fancy a game of ‘spot the Sopranos actor’, then you can’t miss this film.  The script is elegant in structure, sparkling in dialogue and heartfelt in message, leaving very little to criticise amongst the riches to recommend.  Now if that’s not an offer you can’t refuse I don’t know what is.

Blu-ray extras: Making of, Trailer

La Grande Illusion (U)

This influential French classic is out on DVD and Blu-ray next week, and currently on re-release in cinemas.

La Grande Illusion (U) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

La Grande Illusion, the undisputed masterpiece by pioneering French filmmaker Jean Renoir, looks better now than it ever has thanks to a breathtaking restoration. Famously an inspiration to future directing giants including Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese, in 75 years La Grande Illusion has lost none of its ability to move and surprise.

Based on true accounts of the First World War, including Renoir’s personal recollections, the story sees Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) and Jewish banker Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) captured behind enemy lines by the aristocratic Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim). They are put in a POW camp, and after an escape attempt are remanded at a maximum security fortress, under Rauffenstein’s command.

The colourful and contrasting characters that populate the story help make every scene gripping and entertaining. The great von Stroheim’s authoritative presence is as palpable as ever, and Fresnay brings an air of pure courage to the memorable Boeldieu. Little Early Peters who played the adorable Lotte towards the end of the film, sadly never saw the finished product, having died tragically from flu only weeks before the premiere.

Upon release in 1937 the film was considered a controversial and subversive indictment of war, prompting Joseph Goebbels to refer to Renoir as ‘Cinematic Public Enemy Number One’. Although eventually banned in Italy, La Grande Illusion was so well received at the Venice Film Festival that a new award called the Grand Jury Prize was devised and bestowed upon it, to avoid giving it the Mussolini Prize!

What sets the film apart from most war films is the way in which soldiers from both sides are presented with equal sympathy. French and Germans alike are portrayed as dutiful patriots, all too aware of the absurdity and human cost of the great conflict in which they find themselves. The gentlemanly friendship between the well-mannered but fearless Boeldieu and the weary Rauffenstein, painfully highlights the tragedy of would-be comrades cruelly pitted against each other by a seemingly endless war.

From his brilliantly choreographed camerawork to his intricate building of tension and character, Renoir’s cinematic influence has echoed throughout the 20th Century. When even the genius behind Citizen Kane calls a film the greatest ever made, there’s no taking it lightly! To this day La Grande Illusion is an innovative and essential classic, making the opportunity to revisit or discover it for the first time, unmissable.

Blu-ray extras: La Petite Marchande d’Allumettes from Jean Renoir (short film), Trailers: 1937 & 1958 (introduced by Jean Renoir), Francoise Giroud remembers shooting the film, Introduction by Ginette Vincendeau, Success and controversy, John Truby talks about La Grande Illusion, Restoring La Grande Illusion, The story of the original negative.