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The post Monday Movie: Les Visiteurs du Soir, by Scott Nye appeared first on Battleship Pretension.
Every Monday, we’ll highlight a piece of writing from our vaults. This review of Les Visiteurs du Soir originally ran as a home video review.
Given that Marcel Carné, along with screenwriter Jacques Prévert, pretty much perfected poetic realism, it seems only natural that they would abandon the “realism” for “fantasy” and craft a truly stunning, resonant medieval fable like Les Visiteurs du Soir. Translating directly to “The Night Visitors,” but more commonly released in English-speaking territories as The Devil’s Envoys, it concerns two minstrels (musicians, that is; played by Alain Cuny and Arletty) who are tasked by the Devil (Jules Berry) to spread heartbreak by breaking up the soon-to-be-wed Anne (Marie Déa) and Renaud (Marcel Herrand). Why the Devil would be so concerned with breaking hearts is one for religious scholars to ponder; in Marcel Carné’s carousel of romance, it couldn’t be more natural.
Romance is, after all, the central preoccupation of gangsters and deserters (Port of Shadows), criminals on the run (Le jour se lève), depressives (Hotel du nord), and, well, everyone else (Children of Paradise). Why would the Devil not be equally possessed by its allure? And it should be clear, for as much as the characters in all of these films talk about love, what they’re referring most (and best) to is romance, that undeniable pleasure when two people come together and haven’t another care in the world, their future included. It becomes clear very quickly that Gilles’ seduction of Anne goes deeper than a mere promise to the devil. She is shown early on to be dissatisfied with the the prospects of living with Renaud, who would prefer she keep her emotions so buried that she not even dream (“I never dream,” he boasts), and as with all such heightened depictions of romance, death is preferable to a life without love.
Even if you’re not yet familiar with Carné’s work, this will provide a superb introduction. For those who know his swooning touch all too well, you’ll find but more to love here, as he abandons reality even further towards some very pure expressiveness. One of the failings of the early Cahiers du cinéma crowd (including Godard, Truffaut, and other New Wave luminaries) was dismissing his filmmaking, which was made under Nazi occupation but hardly felt “occupied,” so to speak. They do fit somewhat into the idea of the French “Tradition of Quality” cinema, with lavish sets and melodramatic performances and so forth, but they’re so unerringly earnest, and Carné’s camerawork is endlessly joyful. Even when the films take mournful turns (as they often do), they’re a joy to behold. To see Gilles and Dominique stop time to take their lovers out to the garden, to the frozen moonlight…this is cinema, plain and simple.
The post Monday Movie: Les Visiteurs du Soir, by Scott Nye first appeared on Battleship Pretension.
The post Monday Movie: Les Visiteurs du Soir, by Scott Nye appeared first on Battleship Pretension.
