Port of Shadows (Le Quai Des Brumes) is a film directed by Marcel Carné is 1930 It stars well-known early French actor Jean Gabin, who was best for his collaborations with Jean Renoir and Carné. The film shares it's cinematic town Le Havere with the recent of the same name. It's also one of the many predecessors to film noir like The Petrified Forest, M, Pépé le Moko (who also starred Gabin). It is perhaps the most grey film eer made, I don't mean that just cause it's black and white but the whole colour palette is very high contrast grey with very little black.
The film tells the story of an army deserter Jean (Jean Gabin) who hitchhikes to the port town of Le Have. He meets a drunk on his first night in town and takes him to a dive bar on the edge of the shipyard. He meets a girl Nelly (Michèle Morgan) and a dog. Her ex lover goes missing, Jean and Nelly hook up, they have to deal with her creepy godfather oh and there are some gangsters as well.
It’s one of the key films of the French poetic realism movement of the mid 30s to early 40s along with other legendary filmmakers like Jean Vigo and the previously mentioned Jean Renoir. It was very much the link between German Expressionism and the Film Noir of the 1940s and 1950s but was equally influences on the French New Wave and the earlier Italian Neorealism. I’m a much bigger fan of poetic realism than the more common socio-realism, which is very prevalent in British cinema. It’s all very much studio based and much more it’s aesthetically concerned then a amazing story, they stories all rather simple. They also tend to share a world-weary view of the world, which is clearly influential on the characters in British film noir.
The film is filmed
in glorious high contrast grey film stock, which is so foggy but in a beautiful
way, it’s spellbinding.
Jean
Gabin is totally wonderful in the film, as is Michèle Morgan. It also features
the best performance by a dog (Sorry The
Artist). Carné uses really effective metaphor of a ship in a bottle to
symbolize the characters sense of entrapment. It was actually criticized by
government officials as helping the Nazis beat France because of it’s
negativity towards the state and the morals of the French Character.
Overall, it’s a wonderful influential piece of proto-noir, which should be seen and cherished. It has been recently reissued by StudioCanal on blu-ray and dvd and is certainly worth tracking down.
Ian Schultz
Rating:PG
Re Release Date: 10th September 2012 (UK)
Directed by:Marcel Carné
Cast:Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur
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