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Film Review - Le Jour se lève (1939)

Genre:
Crime, Drama, Romance
Distributor:
Studiocanal UK
Rating: PG
Release Date:
3rd October 2014 (Cinema)
27th October 2014 (Home)
Director:
Marcel Carné
Cast:
Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty,
buy:Le Jour Se Leve - 75th Anniversary Edition [DVD] [1939]
Le Jour se lève is a prime example of what is known as French Poetic realism. It’s a very important genre because it’s very much a proto version of film noir; it often concerned doomed heroes and more often than not they were crime stories. They also created realism, hence the more Poetic aspect than the documentary realism. Le Jour se lève was directed by Marcel Carné who is one the directors most associated with Poetic realism but other directors associated were Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo who, sadly, died way too young.

The film stars Jean Gabin who was the French star until the 1960s; he was in many great French films and worked with Renoir and Carné many times. Gabin plays François who is a factory worker and you first see him after he kills a man called Valentin and he barricades himself in his room after the police arrive.

The rest of the film is told in flashback, which would become a convention for many noir films to follow. He reflects on how he got in the situation he is in over the course of the long night. It involved some girls, as you might expect, and one of the girls is Valentin’s assistant. The film’s structure was very much ahead of its time and would influence Orson Welles, Jules Dassin, Jean-Pierre Melville and numerous noir films like Detour, so it’s hardly surprising that it was later remade as an American noir film. It also has an air of existentialism that only the French do this well when it comes to crime films. It all comes down to an ending that is as much Camus as it is Hammett.

Jean Gabin gives one of his finest performances in the lead role. He is often forgotten in the scheme of great film actors, partly because he was one of the first; he would be highly influential on people like Marlon Brando and James Dean. He goes through hell and replays his mistakes in his head, and due to Gabin’s performance, you can feel his pain.

Le Jour se lève is getting a theatrical re-release from the 3rd of October in selected cinemas. It will be out on Blu-Ray at the end of October. The new restoration looks beautiful; black and white works particularly well in High Definition. It includes a feature length documentary on the film, along with stuff on the deleted scenes by the Vichy Government, and a featurette on the restoration process.

★★★★
Ian Schultz