Après l’amour (1948)

Après l’amour is a French romantic film drama first released in 1948, directed by Maurice Tourneur.  The film stars Pierre Blanchar, Simone Renant, Gisèle Pascal, Fernand Fabre and Gabrielle Fontan.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


At a reception in honour of her husband winning the Noble Prize for literature, Nicole Mézaule meets a former lover who has some news for her.  She is invited to visit a house outside Paris where she makes a shocking discovery.  For the past eight years her husband, François, has been leading a double life – spending his afternoons with another woman who has borne him a son.   François explains that all this began when Nicole left him for another man, eight years before.  In the short time that elapsed before Nicole returned to him, having been thrown over by her lover, he had met and fallen in love with another woman, a young student named Germaine…

The great French film actor Pierre Blanchar gives one of his most memorable performances in this inspired and rather poignant adaptation of a stage play by Henri Duvernois and Pierre Wolff.  Après l’amour had previously been adapted for cinema – first in 1924 by Maurice Champreux  and then in 1931 by Léonce Perret.   It is a good example of the kind of romantic melodrama that was popular until the early 1950s – even if, like a Victorian novel, the ending has perhaps one plot twist too many.

This was the penultimate film to be made by Maurice Tourneur, a director who made a significant contribution to “quality cinema” in the 1930s and 1940s, including many classic works, although nowadays he is largely – and criminally – overlooked.  Tourneur’s films have a distinctive look and feel which is informed by German expressionism and French poetic realism – note his use of light and shade to add depth and character to a situation and to heighten the emotional impact, in a way that is subtle and never contrived.

Like many of Tourneur’s films, Après l’amour is beautifully shot, making the most of the artistic potential afforded by black and white cinematography.   This film so closely resembles classic film noir in its mood and style (and the fact that most of the story is told in flashback, not unlike a crime film) that it can almost be classified as film noir itself.  Another characteristic of this director is an aversion to sentimentality and excessively emotional performances.  Here, the understated acting works well – Blanchar is particularly effective – and somehow the lack of “played” emotion makes the film’s unashamedly weepy denouement all the more touching and poetic.

© James Travers 2006

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