There is a deeper meaning here, but I don't know if I care. Many have suggested in the past that mere technical brilliance is not enough to carry a film; I am guilty of having believed this once. And to be honest, I don't know if I can spot technical brilliance, but I know spectacle when I see it. I understand the scope of something, and this has a scope that is breathtaking. The idea that technical brilliance cannot carry a film suggests a lack of appreciate for the feeling of wonder. While technical brilliance is not necessary, and while technical brilliance does not necessarily equal greatness, there are times when it evokes such powerful feelings of wonder that it…

Although I’ve watched thousands of films there are still a few classics I have yet to experience. One such film is Les Enfants du Paradis and what better time to watch it since it has recently been restored and released on Blu-Ray. For the eagle eyed amongst you, you will notice I have refrained from giving the film a star rating, not because it is a no star film but because I’m still unsure quite what it deserves. At over three hours it is a sizeable investment of time and I’m not convinced I was quite in the right frame of mind for this type of film. Therefore it is not entirely fair for me to judge it accurately on…

In Paris in the early nineteenth century, the boisterous Boulevard du Crime, full of street artists and theatres, is the scene of love stories marked by an inevitable fate and fatality. Garance is a beautiful woman who falls in love at first sight with Baptiste Deburau, a talented pantomime artist who gives life to the mythical figure of Pierrot. Baptiste's shyness prevents him from approaching the woman he so dearly loves and she finds refuge in the charismatic actor Frédérick Lemaître. Some other characters enter the scene, the hopeful Nathalie, the rebel Pierre-François Lacenaire, the vain Comte Édouard de Montray, and thus jealousy, banality and pride, unrequited love, revenge and frustration are combined. Les Enfants du Paradis is theatre as…

82/100

First half as sublime as I remembered, right down to the thrilling curtain drop—not a cliffhanger, exactly (that would feel cheap), but an abrupt, seemingly out-of-character decision that effectively turns all of the established relationships upside-down. Second half's a bit wobblier, mostly because Carné and Prévert struggle to find room for all the characters "several years later"—the Count (who's barely glimpsed in part one) has usurped Frédérick Lemaître's role as primary impediment to Garance and Baptiste, for example, yet Lemaître's diva behavior dominates the opening of part two, to the point where it feels like the movie's wandered off course. (Pierre Brasseur's mugging may be a contributing factor here—like Julien Carette's vaudeville clown in Grand Illusion, it's an intentionally…

Film #17 of Project 40

”Love is simple.”

Some film historians believe that this was in fact a response to the critically and financially successful Gone with the Wind and you can certainly see the contrasts both in terms of film’s general way of dealing with issues such as love, poverty, the passing of time and loyalty and also in its somewhat gritty visual style which is totally different from the gorgeous and sharp shots of Victor Fleming’s film. Les Enfants du Paradis is filled with the same kind of romanticism which is common in French literature and its epic scale, multiple characters with interwoven storylines and patient pace give the atmosphere of the film the feeling of a classic…