"Les Portes De La Nuit", Dir: Marcel Carné, 1946

From a script by Jacques Prévert, "Les Porte De La Nuit" (Eng: "Gates of The Night") could be considered an example of French poetic realism since it features a character whose origins are to be found in Greek classical literature in the form of the seer as an intermediary between gods and men, which may serve to explain why the film was considered a flop following its release as it is a detail that may have gone over the heads of most audiences at the time and thought of as an unnecessary addition. The director, Marcel Carné is best known for "Les Enfant Du Paradis" and is considered a leading director of the poetic realism cinema movement that followed in the aftermath of WWII and the liberation of France that resulted in cinema distinguished by references to classical literature, in this case, Greek tragedies, perhaps to provide some perspective on the war. The film opens with an aerial view of a run-down and poverty stricken suburb of Paris in the immediate postwar, post-liberation period and a voice-over narration to provide context and the camera settles on a busy metro stop where a man is selling watches from a suitcase to passing commuters and his daughter a short distance way is selling croissant from a pitch at the station gates, both pivotal characters in the plot and a vignette that establishes the predicament of the average Parisian at that time. The plot shifts to the interior of a moving metro train where we first see Yves Montand as "Jean Diego" and are introduced to a shabby-looking character, "Le clochard / La fortune" (Jean Vilar) in the same crowded compartment who seems to take a keen interest in Diego, which makes him uncomfortable. It's important at this point to explain the role of Jean Vilar's "La Fortune" or "Destiny" throughout the plot since he appears from time to time to warn the characters of some impending fate or destiny and it is up to Montand's character of "Diego" to follow his advice or suffer the consequences and it is this that underpins what is in essence a tragedy. Diego has been recently released from imprisonment by the occupying Nazi administration due to his Communist leanings and is on a mission to find the wife of his old friend "Raymond Lécuyer" (Raymond Bussières) in order to deliver the sad news that he has been executed but this is only a cover story and in fact "Lécuyer" has escaped with his life and now lives with his wife and family and Diego knows the name of the collaborator who ratted on him to the Nazis. The fact that the collaborator and "Lécuyer" are from the same Parisian suburb is an important detail and the landlord of the decrepit apartment building that "Lécuyer" lives in with his family is a former collaborator who made a good living during the war by selling off the possessions of those evicted by the Nazis and whose wayward son is in fact the person who ratted on "Lécuyer". Diego becomes further embroiled after glimpsing a beautiful woman in a car outside a local cafe haunt - a woman who is revealed to be the sister of the collaborator, "Guy Sénéchal" (Serge Reggiani) and who has returned to France from New York via the U.K after liberation with her wealthy husband "Georges" (Pierre Brasseur). The woman "Malou" (Nathalie Nattier), has fallen out of love with her controlling husband and is determined to get a divorce from him and this situation leads her to falling for Montand's "Diego" when he discovers that she is the torch singer that he remembers hearing when he was in New York during the War and the song "Les Feuilles Morte" (Eng: "The Dead Leaves") which is a leitmotif of the film's score by composer Joseph Kosma.

It is from this premise that not one, but a series of tragedies play out for several of the characters, not just for Montand's "Diego" and that highlight the divided loyalties that tore through families during the German occupation of France.

Although the film was a commercial failure for the reasons mentioned above, it succeeds in being a gripping but uncharacteristically downbeat entry in the immediate French post-war cinema period when audiences didn't want to be reminded of the difficulties faced by ordinary people during the German occupation, though it's moral stance can't be ignored and by framing it in the context of a Greek tragedy Prévert and Carné are really saying that lessons need to be learned from the past to avoid making the same mistakes again. The film is notable for launching Yves Montand's career as a singer and an actor, though this early career performance is not considered his best, with his rendition of the melancholy and haunting leitmotif theme composed by Joseph Kosma and lyrics written by Jacques Prévert and not heard in the film itself and is better known in the West as "Autumn Leaves" in a version adapted from Prévert's original French by Johnny Mercer, having since been covered extensively by many artists such as Doris Day and Frank Sinatra and is now considered a jazz classic.

https://youtu.be/DCYXuhg9LiQ?si=lPJwlhqZ1q5NXRGU

"Les Portes De La Nuit", Dir: Marcel Carné, 1946

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