La Marie du port (1949) - film review

Odile le Flem returns to the Normandy town where she grew up, Port-en-Bessin, to attend the funeral of her father.  She is accompanied by her boyfriend, Henri Chatelard, who runs a thriving brasserie and cinema in the nearby town of Cherbourg.  After the funeral, Henri falls under the spell of Odile’s younger sister, Marie, who, with her withdrawn and unpredictable nature, is almost the complete opposite of Odile.  Even though he is more than twenty years her senior, Henri becomes increasingly infatuated with Marie, and she in turn seems to be attracted to him.  However, Marie already has a boyfriend, Marcel, who is devotedly attached to her. But, whereas Henri is a successful businessman, Marcel is a mere hairdresser’s assistant...

After the commercial failure of Les Portes de la nuit (1949) and the abandonment of Fleur de l’Age, director Marcel Carné soon made a return to form with this suspenseful adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel.  The film marks another promising comeback – that of Jean Gabin after service in World War II and an unsuccessful attempt to break into American cinema.  Here Gabin is partnered with the exquisite Nicole Courcel, who shines in her first substantial screen role as the deceptively innocent temptress, Marie.

Partly on account of its controversial subject matter, but mainly because Carné’s style of cinema was going out of fashion, La Marie du port was ill-received by many critics on its first release.  Whilst it may not match the excellence of the director’s pre-WWII films, it is nonetheless a work  of great merit – well-scripted, attractively shot in the stark poetic realist style of Carné’s earlier films, and with some nuanced performances from a talented cast.  The film captures perfectly the darkly ironic undertones of Simemon’s story, making this a complex and poignant portrayal of an ambiguous and potentially disastrous love affair.

© James Travers 2003

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