Introduction to classics. French "poetic realism." Part 4.
- Do you love life?
- Yes, there are days.
- And life? Does she love you?
- While she's acting more like a bastard, maybe she'll change her mind if I love her.
Marcel Carnet is one of the most prominent French directors of his time. His films have repeatedly been recognized as the greatest achievements in the history of world cinema. In 1938, he produced the film “The Embankment of Mists”, which is considered one of the most important milestones in the development of French “poetic realism”.
Escaped from the horrors of war, the protagonist of the film, Jean, does not find peace in ordinary life. His future, covered with a thick, impenetrable fog enveloping the entire coast of the port city, he is abandoned and lost like an unfortunate mongrel following him. There is lostness and doom in the air. The fog of the unjustification of time, as if closes any path to any bright future. Only a chance acquaintance with a beautiful young Nelly, breathes new life into his seemingly long-coarse soul.
The image of the main character turned out to be very multifaceted and interesting. The same can be said of all the heroes of the film. Naive and unhappy Nelly, who is at the mercy of her godfather, who experiences far from fatherly feelings for her, the godfather Zabel himself, a jealous, petty bandit Lucien, in which there is much more cheap ostentation than a real threat. In fact, Zabel, that Lucien both represent a kind of personification of evil and vice, only if one is petty and pathetic, the other is calculated and two-faced. Jean, with all his soldierly nobility, fights against the arbitrariness of these two men. The secondary characters also turned out great. What is worth only a depressed artist that has lost the colors of life and now paints only gloomy pictures, for only such in him come out of the “nature” of the surrounding world. In the dispute that arose between him and Jean, there is a clash of cynicism and romanticism, in which one cannot exist without the other. At the same time, the director reveals the theme of tragic and fleeting love, which for Jean what for Nelly is both happiness and curse.
Of course, the depth of images would not have been possible without outstanding acting work. Jean Gabin perfectly embodied the image of the lost soldier. With all his inherent masculinity and at the same time sensitivity, together with the charming Michelle Morgan (whose clothes for the film were selected by Coco Chanel herself), they embodied one of the most famous romantic images in cinema. Just as Michelle Simon is always good in the role of Zabel, his frightening and at the same time pathetic image is strongly embedded in the memory, however, as other works of this amazing character actor. But Pierre Brasser in the role of Lucien, in my opinion, in some places slightly overplayed, maybe this was the idea of the director, but the actor’s too eccentric play greatly affects the perception of his image.
Bottom line: “The Embankment of Mists” is an absolute classic for all time and one of the best (if not the best) examples of “poetic realism”. Of course, now many aspects of the picture and seem outdated, which is understandable given its age. However, the story told in the film has not lost its depth. Perhaps many elements of the production and seem somewhat clumsy now, the general approach to the production and the play of the actors are perfectly executed.
With the advent of sound, the perception of films in the viewer changes, if earlier the understanding of the plot mainly depended on facial expressions and gestures of actors, now the main role is played by oral speech and music. Jean Gaben is an actor who played the main role in “The Embankment of Mists” and in many other films of poetic realism – a person with almost unreadable emotions on his face, if not for his words and voice, it would be very difficult to guess the emotional state of the hero. If this tendency to emotionlessness is mass, one should fear that new technologies in the cinema will remove a person from the screen altogether, but the case of Jean Gabin is rare.
The cast of “Mist Embankment” shows a talented game, creating clear and memorable images: a young and already disillusioned in the life of Nelly (Michelle Morgan), despised by the environment owner of the souvenir shop Zabel (Michelle Simon) and others.
The atmosphere of hopelessness characteristic of films of poetic realism covers Le Havre, in which the action of the picture develops. Here we meet social outsiders (the visitors to the shack in Panama and its owner); most of them look desperate. Michelle paints what is hidden inside. Even in the rose I see blood, which is not accepted by society, refuses to fight for his talent or just live on. The owner of the shack talks all the time about Panama in 1906, where he had probably the happiest time of his life; like an escapist, he does not want to focus on reality.
“Do not try to break my tears with stories and complaints about fog. There's no fog here. You see the barometer hanging? The arrow always shows "clear," which is what Panama says to Jean when he comes to his establishment for the first time. Even a young girl, Nelly, who comes to a shack in Panama to escape Zabel's fear-inducing guardian, sounds hopeless: Every morning the sun rises and you wait for something bright and beautiful, but it's already evening, the sun goes down and nothing changes. How sad it is!
The motive of broken hopes is shown on the example of the Quarter's dream of sleeping on white sheets, which comes true at the end of the film, but not as ideally as I would like: his sleep is interrupted by loud ship horns, heralding the departure of the ship. Also, bright plans for love or a joint escape with Jean Nelly are ruined, as her lover dies, leaving the girl alone.
The main enemy of every hero is fate. Despite the fact that in the film you can clearly find friends and detractors, even in the speeches of Jean often flashes the expression “today fate favors me.”
An integral part of the narrative is the fog: it not only envelopes the city for days at a time, but also often appears in the conversations of the characters. The artist, who decided to take his own life, hints at this to Panama, using the word fog in his replica: “The sea is restless, fog.” - What? - I say what is. The owner of the shack does not try to reason with Michel and rather indifferently lets him go to his death; however, after the misfortune happens, Panama itself cannot deny the presence of fog: "Well, what a fog it is."
With the development of the plot, the main characters undergo metamorphosis. Tired and unsociable Jean, talking about fog in the head and shooting, is transformed when he meets an innocent pretty girl. At first, Jean tells Panama that he is not talkative, and indeed usually remains silent unless he snaps (for example, at Michel's suggestion to paint his portrait). But as soon as he meets Nelly, he immediately begins to chat incessantly, while also having time to eat.
Nelly, too, has changed since she met Jean; she becomes fearless, love gives her courage and hope.
The ending of the film is also symbolic: the horn of the departing steamer, sounding frighteningly loud immediately after the death of the main character, as if it reminds us that life does not stand still, one death does not change anything; people continue to travel, go to work, kill each other and themselves. One small tragedy in the lives of unimportant people is their personal trouble, which will gather a crowd of onlookers or even win the front page of newspapers for a day, and then forget how books are forgotten on cafe tables.
Marcel Carnet made the film “The Embankment of Mists” in 1938, when directors (especially French) could not afford to shoot a completely dark, serious film. A special French flavor is created in almost theatrically played scenes: there is a light grotesque and a look at the camera. However, do not think that this movie is entertaining. As is often the case, the title of the film says a lot about its character. Indeed, the Embankment of Mists appears before us a rather gloomy film with obvious existential overtones and, of course, with fog. Carnet's film is one of the precursors of the genre of "noir" in the cinema, which will be characterized by a criminal plot, police officers, criminals and a fatal woman.
The main character is a soldier of the colonial troops, who for some hidden reasons left the army and dreams of being as far away from his native land as possible. Jean, like a typical existential hero, is “thrown out” into this world for unclear purposes and for unclear reasons. The small port town further emphasizes the "border" state of the hero - people here do not stay long. Carne deliberately introduces ambiguity in the image of the main character and we know almost nothing about him, because personality is not the main thing here. The appearance of Jean, his actions - all suggests that he somehow tired of this life. He puts himself and the driver in mortal danger for the sake of a stray dog, and then drives it away. He stands up for a girl he barely knows, also risking his life by engaging in open conflict with local gangsters. He is not afraid of anything, because he has nothing to lose in this world. His life is already lost (it is not known for what reasons) - we see it in Jean's doomed, tired look. The soldier’s life, meanwhile, is over and he is not averse to trying on the life of another person, to play a new role in this already boring performance. This role will be notoriously tragic: almost the same as that of Michel Poicard (1960 “In the Last Breath”, Jean-Luc Godard) or even later in David Locke (1975 “Profession: Reporter”, M. Antonioni). This doom creeps into the shape of the hero after he accepts the “life” of the artist who committed suicide.
Death hovers in this French town, now appearing, then hiding in a thick fog. A decisive influence on the life of the hero is the love for the “fatal” woman. This is the only thing worth living for. But is it love, or can it be a beautiful way to delay a death lost in the thick fog?
A man and a woman will never find a common language, they are too different, even their words are different.
On the waterfront, the people are dark, or even criminal. But there are beautiful things in this world... There is probably nothing easier than stopping and admiring a beautiful tree, or, well, dreaming of sleeping at night, under a white clean sheet. Each his own... But when they paint me, I also imagine, and against my will, I also depict things that are hidden behind other things. And for someone who is already completing his journey, whose circle has closed, this too has once become an image of crime with all its inner content, where even in the flower of a rose you can see the dead. Of course, you have to be a fool to live this way, in perpetual malaise and anxiety. And if you were to paint someone else's portrait, men or women, if you were to try again to portray life, without all its horrors, without war, and paint a picture that was really positive.
They may not have a common language, but they can love each other.
The rude are given joy, the gentle are given sorrow. I don't need anything, I don't feel sorry for anyone. Sergei Yesenin.
Exactly a year before the outbreak of World War II, French film director Marcel Carnet told the world his vision of life, and also gave a ticket to the life of a wonderful actress Michelle Morgan. And although Mademoiselle Morgan already had work in the cinema, it was from the “Mist Embankment”, the entire world and cultural community heard about this actress. And in addition, and already experienced species, although not fattened, experienced movie wolf Jean Gabin, has secured the reputation of an artist who believe no less than James Cagney from the “Roaring Twenties”. And let these two pictures differ significantly in their plot, still the main character and there makes them masterpieces and classic examples of a truly real movie.
I only want to talk about this film to a superb degree. Why? Probably because there is a lot in this picture that the sea wave carries it ashore one of the best paintings of the past and modern times. For example, I caught myself thinking that outwardly Jean Gaben reminded me of Sergei Yesenin, and Michelle Simon, who played the role of Zabel, is surprisingly similar to the hero of Jerzy Binchitsky Rafal Vilchur from the beautiful film by Jerzy Goffman “The Healer”. And how to get past the music of Maurice Jober, which tears the soul when we see the hero Gabin on the waterfront.
Without rocking, from place to quarry, Marcel Carnet makes it clear to the viewer that he has weighty arguments for the debut of the film to strengthen the position and interest in further viewing. A soldier of the colonial troops, brakes the truck, hoping to get on a trip to Le Havre. And when a very talkative driver almost knocks down the dog, Jean twists the lamb, thereby giving life to a white four-legged friend who will not leave him. Well, and the monologue of a soldier who restrained himself and did not give this, in principle, a good driver.
“It is an empty affair shooting like shooting on holidays, on figures in a dash. You pull the trigger, and with a funny grimace, he clutches his stomach like a full-bodied baby. After that, with his hands bloodied, he falls and you're left alone and you don't understand anything. It was like the whole world disappeared with him.
A soldier and a vagrant, Jean, knows what he's talking about. In his lifetime, he saw a lot and it is not for us to judge what happened there, which forced him to escape from the army. Maybe he's just tired of indiscriminate shooting, by his own admission. He has not yet reached the cabin with the magical name "Panama", but will definitely get there. In the meantime, a happy accident brought him together with one subject, who, despite his penchant for the green snake, is not devoid of romantic moods.
- You know what I dream about?
My friend, if you dream on the move, you will quickly break your nose.
I dream of sleeping on real white sheets to lie on one and cover the other.
And here is the whole film, everything in this picture is imbued with good healthy romanticism. The ship in the bottle of Panama 1906. And the reasoning of the artist, who is not just an artist, but a person who gave our hero a second birth.
“The people are always a people, most likely dark, if not criminal. There are no other options.” The conversation taking place in Panama is very expressive and gives food for thought. And among other things, I am curious in terms of looking into the search engine and finding out whether there is such a direction in painting, when the artist looks at the swimmer already sees a drowned person in him. As the movie says, “It’s called painting with a knife.”
But I’m not even close to the hundredth part of the versatility of this film masterpiece. Jean and Nelly's first meeting. People with distorted fate met in a quiet and peaceful corner. The seventeen-year-old has already had a negative experience, as has the colonial soldier. And they're kind of wary of each other. Especially Jean, who lets his tongue squirm about female nature. He tries to isolate himself from the world of women with his unmaligned humor, but can you resist such a girl as the heroine Michelle Morgan?
- What do you mean? That you came here to bring your old grandmother's cakes. Where's your red hat? And I'll have to tell you, oh, that's a pity, because I'm an angry and huge gray wolf.
-What? You gonna hit a big gray wolf? It will inspire him.
Yet these two wanderers, two sinners and two of God’s creations, will find happiness and joy for a few moments. And then it's okay to die. Or rather, it is not so bad...
“This whole life is rubbish, in a word.”
The film, the appearance of which marked the beginning of a new direction in the cinematic art, namely, “poetic realism”. The film made Jean Gabin from a national, world-class star, awarded the Golden Lion of Venice and the most flattering reviews of critics, audiences and the press. One of the leaders of the world rental. Undoubtedly a favorite of numerous lists of “best of the best”. Classics of French and European cinema. All this is about Marcel Carne’s “The Embankment of Mists”, filmed not long before the Second World War, based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Mac – Orlanda. The film is quite popular today, it can easily be purchased on video or seen on TV. In addition, it was recently restored and completely duplicated in Russian. All this suggests that the painting is of great artistic value and is a classic.
The plot of this melodrama, which at one time caused a scandal, is somewhat different from the literary source. In addition to the fact that the writers of the film Pierre Dumarchet and Jacques Prevert moved the place and time of the plot (from the mid-1910s to the modern 1938), they endowed the main character with the character and features of several characters removed from the history. However, the author of the book was delighted, after the final credits, he said that despite all the changes, the director managed to show the spirit of his novel in his film. But not being familiar with the work of the writer, I will talk only about the work of the director and his team. Cinema is a team art. You can’t be a brilliant director with disgusting artists and talentless scripts. The script that Marcel Carnet got into his hands was just magical. Its construction, a leisurely beginning, when the viewer is gradually immersed in the atmosphere of Le Havre - a French port town of the middle, and the time itself seems to come to life on the screen: excellent actors of the 30s, with a characteristic manner of play, touching music by composer Maurice Jobert, really some poetic view of the world through the camera camera operator of the tape Eschen Schufftan: black - white film is incredibly suitable for the picture, and if it was shot in color, it would obviously lose a lot. Is it possible to imagine in color this port with large steamships covered with endless fogs, or the streets of Le Havre with rare hurried passers-by, or a hut on the outskirts, in which an elderly gentleman named Panama kindly gives shelter to those in need? There are films that should not have been made in color. And the "Tumansquay" considered here is one of them. A talented group, magnificent actors and a chic soundtrack make the viewer forget about their own troubles and problems, and move to the pre-war French province, where this dramatic love story of a deserter named Jean, and who met him on his way fatal beauty Lilly unfolds.
Jean Gabin plays a stern soldier, who has seen a lot of blood and trouble, as it is customary to say about such a gray guy. He does not want to return to the colonial troops, where it is not clear why to climb under the bullets and shoot at people. He wants peace, peace and quiet. But he has no place to go, he is a man without a family, without a tribe. As he says about himself bitterly, “I have no one and nothing.” I liked his answer to the question of a suicidal artist – does he love life and does he love life? “So far she’s acting like an asshole, but maybe she’ll change her mind if I love her.” Here is such a rude and not painfully sociable guy meets a beauty in a sweet place, which at first naturally takes for a prostitute, and therefore a conversation with her starts the appropriate. Very amusingly, the actors play the scene of the first conversation: bandits break down from the street in a hut, the owner shoots them off, the sad artist looks melancholy somewhere into the void, and the girl every time shudders and bends at a new shot, while the hero unflappably continues to eat bread and cheese and talk about love at first sight. Michelle Morgan and Jean Gabin are incredibly hilarious in this scene! The first, unlike his partner, creates the image of a fragile and unhappy girl Nelly, by the will of fate, living with an uncle who has long been charged with her - a vile type involved in various criminal frauds, and is the owner of a store. Meet the heroes find their short-term happiness in the arms of each other, although they perfectly understand that this cannot be their fate and they should soon part.
In the picture there are many secondary, constantly overlapping characters. And each of them came out with a convex, memorable personality. Whether it's a nasty businessman Zabel - called Jean Scolopendra (Michel Simon), indifferent to everything, whose personal barometer always shows the mark "Clear" - "Panama" (Eduard Delmont), a petty thief and a drunkard nicknamed "Quartet" (Raymon Emos) - dreaming of finally sleeping on white sheets, an unhappy artist who gave his personality to the hero Michelle (Robert Livegan), a cowardly hooligan trying to seem cool in movies, like a gager, people do not even remember the episodes.
It is interesting that at first the picture was to be shot at the film studio “Uffa” owned by the Third Reich. But the German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels disliked the script so much that he even sold it to a Jewish producer. And in France, the picture was not to everyone’s liking, so for example, censors allowed the film to cinemas, but on the condition that the director removes the word “deserter” from the film, and also reshoots the scene in which the hero removes the hated soldier’s uniform throws it on the floor – Marcel Carnet was asked to shoot how the hero of Jean Gabin her carefully puts on a chair. Today, the innocent kisses of the characters do not seem erotic, and the phrase of the heroine Michelle Morgan: “Kiss me...” does not sound vulgar. The morals of society have changed over the past 70 years. Unfortunately, for the worse. Now the film seems not bold and passionate, but tender and touching.
The style of the film and its presentation, a little later adopted Hollywood. Frank Bordzage in the form of poetic realism will film the adaptation of the famous novel by Erich Maria Remarque “Three Comrades”. Also, the picture of Marcel Carnet can be considered one of the first films of the noir genre (old-fashioned films of the 30s, 40s about criminals, dubious personalities, policemen and femme fatale). This unhurried melodrama about “superfluous people”, closer to the final reaches the power of the Greek tragedy. An original, unhurried film that deserves many more years of life. Anyone who hasn’t seen it yet must see it!
10 out of 10
Probably the most famous, successful and significant film of Marcel Carnet. Although critics, for the most part, note, first of all, “Children of Paradise”...
A masterpiece. And after 76 years (the 1938 film) it looks with great interest. It's all natural, organic. Interesting shooting. Honed dialogue. Filigree-wise mise-en-scene. And the music of Jobert, and the scenery of Trayner - shrouded in fog barracks (machine to create artificial fog invented by Carnet himself), a street brilliant with rain pavement. All this is strikingly well combined with the poeticity of Jacques Prevert’s script. It is said that it was Prevert who initiated the so-called “poetic realism” in French cinema.
Actors.
Pierre Brasser is the father of the very popular Claude Brasser in the 70-80s ("Boom, Black Cloak for a Killer, Ice Breast).
Michelle Simone. Even then, at the age of 47, a sloppy, wrinkled old man seeking reciprocity from 18-year-old Nelly (Michelle Morgan) is a vile personality. Not otherwise, as Prever drew this image, including the heroes of Dostoevsky. There are many similarities in French classics.
And Jean Gabin and Michelle Morgan.
"Kiss me," Nelly says.
And Jean Gabin kisses Michelle Morgan.
Years later, the actress would write about the kiss: "He was real." They kissed for so long that Marcel Carnet cried out, “Okay, that’s enough!” and immediately added, “Okay! Very good! Cut!
By the way, originally “The Embankment of Mists” planned to shoot in Germany, in Hamburg. And with German money. But the Ministry of Information and Propaganda of the Third Reich, having carefully studied the scenario, accused the authors of the picture of plutocracy and decadence. There was a scandal. Dr. Goebbels has forbidden this tape to be taken down. All contracts were cancelled. So the scene was moved from the port of Hamburg to the port of Le Havre.
Presented by France at the Venice Festival, “Mist Embankment” received the “Golden Lion” to the discontented cries of Italian fascists. And under the Petin regime, Carnet’s painting was regarded in France as a typical work that led to defeat in 1940!
10 out of 10
In “The Embankment of Mists”, the first picture that glorified the Frenchman Marcel Carnet among his compatriots and around the world, the most fascinating is that special and inimitable gloss inherent only in black and white cinema of the 30-40s. Many of the subsequent stylizations were undoubtedly successful and interesting, but only as such, as attempts to imitate the original. Fashionable costumes, expressive and “correct” faces of actors, clearly outlined characters – all made it clear to us that this is the era. With their canons and their ideas about what cinema is, how and who should be filmed, what stories to tell. Even though the cinema did not go beyond the typical melodramas, comedies and detective stories of that time, it still remained very – in a good sense – spectacular and by no means banal, and curious for us even from the point of view of the historical development of cinema. Remember at least “Casablanca” or “Waterloo Bridge” – seemingly ordinary love dramas, but what power of feelings, what tragedy, what heroes! I believe that Carne’s picture is on a par with similar works by American directors. It is something different, something more French.
He and she met by chance in a small port town. He is an ordinary soldier, wandering in an unknown direction, away from his past. She is the goddaughter of a venerable merchant who spends her young years in the suffocating atmosphere of the town. He is honest and fair, calm and straightforward, a little harsh, but at heart kind. She is still very young and naive, still pure and beautiful, although she happened to see and experience the abominations of life ahead of time. He's Jean. She's Nelly.
The meeting of these two is only a short and bright moment of the birth of a great but unrealizable happiness. Le Havre is a gray and alienated and even colder and uncomfortable from the black tones of the film, a city immersed in a fog where people seek shelter, but never find, try to know and understand other people, but never get close to the goal. In other words, this is the world where we live, or rather, a small and emphasized dark and hopeless copy of it. “Man and woman speak different languages, they are not able to understand each other,” begins Jean. So life proceeds in its insoluble contradiction.
Speaking of a clear outline of the characters, I do not mean that the characters of the old movie are not characterized by doubts and internal struggle. So, on the way to Le Havre, Jean inadvertently saves the life of a small dog, which instinctively reaches for him, the same restless and lonely creature. Whether ashamed of the care shown, or not wanting to get attached, the soldier waved a stone at the dog. But he, frightened, returns again and does not leave him until the end of the story. And Jean comes to terms with it. Detrimental and fatal in the fate of Jean are his anger and hatred for all scoundrels and scoundrels, which he is unable to restrain, despite a large and kind heart. “All the most terrible things I do when I am angry” – such is his cross, and he must bear it. It is symbolic that in search of shelter, Jean finds himself in a small house by the sea, near a certain Panama, in the refuge of people whose conscience is unclean. Some, the lost and disbeliefed, like the wandering artist, doubt whether they should ever live such a miserable existence without any visible prospects. Others, like a petty thief who works in the dock, dream only of a warm bed and white sheets and see this as the pinnacle of their happiness. Love and jealousy, the desire to commit suicide and the desire to fight, the fear of the unknown future and the joy of chance encounters – these things go side by side, and they are all clearly visible to us in this film.
It is noteworthy that the master of Swedish cinema Ingmar Bergman included “The Embankment of Mists” in the top ten of his favorite paintings. This in no way should change the attitude to the film, but, perhaps, should make you think and interested in this work of Marcel Carnet and his work in general. And in general, to encourage us to search for and study those wonderful examples of film art, the existence of which we previously did not suspect.
This crime drama, with a banal plot for our time, became the cause of world recognition of the French director Marcel Carnet. In fact, in our century of stories about such cool guys as the character of Jean Gabin, a huge number and this is the reason that this film of 1938 has long been a classic – an example for imitation of crime films about tough guys singles. Of course, the picture of Carnet withstood the test of time and is still able to intrigue, even such an advanced and seemingly seen many similar plots of the viewer. Undoubtedly, the general admiration of the viewer is largely due to the remarkable acting skills of the inimitable Jean Gabin and, in my opinion, the absolute genius of the old man Michel Simon, whom I remember from the film by Jean Vigo - Atalanta.
The characteristic title of the film – “The Embankment of Mists” already prepares its viewer for endless intrigues and mysterious, fog-covered characters who constantly revolve around the main character and fascinate with the contrast of their actions, now and then helping or hindering him.
In a word, there is something to think about, after viewing this picture - many small details that barely noticeable subdext reach the attentive viewer and leave their mark. In fact, at first glance, a rather primitive plot is still perceived differently if you read between the lines. Marcel Carnet acted as a skillful master and showed in one seemingly small plot a lot of interesting and worthy of attention: the value system, mutual trust, disappointment, secrets, aspiration, the destructive power of love - all this can be seen in this film and it is no coincidence that it was he who was the beginning of the formation of a wonderful French director, who later shot such wonderful pictures as "The Day Begins", "Evening Visitors", "Children of the District", etc.
I highly recommend it.
While I am not a fan of French poetic realism, I cannot share many words of admiration from the symbolism suggested in the picture. After all, if you are more interested in the history of the film, it is impossible not to recall that originally it was supposed to be shot in Hamburg, and Goebbels’ strict ban on filming was disavowed by the exact actions of producer Gregor Rabinovich.
Of course, the story about a soldier who is running from something (it is not necessary to represent him as a deserter) can be associated with an allegorical poetic prophecy about the future of France, but still the issues of futurism in the cinema were most accurately revealed by Herbert Wells.
What impresses me most about this film is the atmosphere recreated by the author. The universe of Le Havre is limited to a modest embankment, a diner, wet asphalt, branded fogs. Ordinary talk about the meaning of life fits into the picture of Cezanne “Card Players”. The important thing is not what the characters talk about, it is important that empty, at first glance, conversations occupy most of the screen time. It works perfectly contrast with the decisive image of Jean Gabin.
Against the background of general despondency, a person is very important, the image of a person who continues to fight, is ready to fall in love, can slap a gangster, get angry.
Thinking about this tape, I try to focus my attention on visual solutions, the heroic image of Gaben. Something fleeting akin to the picture with “Coffee and Cigarettes” Jarmusch. This is the atmosphere of life.