Le Roi de Paris (1995) - film review

In the 1930s, Victor Derval is the most admired stage actor in Paris.  One night, he is accosted by a young Hungarian woman, Lisa Lanska.   Victor is so moved by her evident enthusiasm for the theatre that he gives her a job as his personal assistant.  When she has settled into his home, Victor realises he is in love with her, but so is his son Paul, a hot-headed young writer with revolutionary ideals.  The playwright Romain Coste also falls for Lisa’s charms and creates a part for her in his next play.   Bitterly jealous of his father, Paul stages a drama of his own…

Although somewhat heavily overwritten and marred by some clumsy, cliché-laden direction, Le Roi de Paris is a compelling period drama which exceptional production values and some exemplary acting.  One again in his impressive film career, Philippe Noiret gives a robust, engaging performance which alternates between bellicose excess and introspective torment, his presence dominating the film as, for once, it should.  Whilst obscured somewhat by Noiret’s immense shadow, his co-stars, Veronika Varga and Manuel Blanc manage to distinguish themselves with their impressive contributions, leaving little doubt that both actors have a promising career ahead of them.

Whilst the film is essentially just another love-triangle melodrama, Maillet’s treatment of his subject, coupled with Noiret’s performance, makes it something more substantial.  Rather like François Truffaut’s Le Dernier metro (1980), which the film occasionally resembles, Le Roi de Paris stands as a tribute to theatre of the 1930s, accurately portraying the world of theatre and its colourful contributors.  One regret is that the script is needlessly peppered with arcane references to theatre, plays and cinema of the time, most of will pass right over the heads of all but a few spectators.  The threat which cinema posed to theatre is shoehorned into the film, but, again, this is something which could, and perhaps should, have been omitted, since it provides an unwelcome distraction from the central narrative thrust.  Despite such intrusive directorial indulgences, Le Roi de Paris is not a bad film.  Atmospheric, sometimes intensely sombre, it is a fair example of the kind of character-based drama in which French cinema excels.

© James Travers 2004

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