Les Jeux sont faits (1947) - film review

Eve Charlier is poisoned by her husband, an unscrupulous state official, so that he can marry her younger sister.  At the same moment that she dies, a political agitator, Pierre Dumaine is shot dead by a police informer on the eve of an uprising against the state.  Eve and Pierre meet up in the afterlife, where they can observe the world of the living but cannot alter anything.  When they appear to fall in love, they are allowed to return to the land of the living for one more day.  If they can prove that they love each other sincerely, they will be permitted to live out the rest of their lives together.  Otherwise…

Les Jeux sont faits is one of a number of great French films made in the 1940s which have never really achieved the viewership and recognition they deserve.  Admittedly the film is less technically accomplished than works such as Les Enfants du paradis or Les Visiteurs du soir, and the cast list is certainly less awe-inspiring (although Micheline Presle is stunning in this film).   Nevertheless it is a major work of great artistic merit, as well as being an entertaining film, and it really ought to be seen more widely.

The script for the film was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, perhaps the most celebrated philosopher of the Twentieth Century.  Whilst references to Sartre’s beliefs and conjectures abound in the film, the script is far from being a dry philosophical discourse.  The central premise of Les Jeux sont faits is centred around whether one man (or woman) really has the ability to change things in the world.  Are events pre-ordained, and are we all simply destined to act out a part which has already been written?  This is a dilemma which is the heart of Sartre’s existentialist view of life, and the film explores the matter with both intelligence and, surprisingly, great humanity.

What makes this a great film perhaps more than anything else is the way it blends conventional dramatic realism, dry comedy and off-the-wall surrealism.  A haughty Marguerite Moreno (then a doyenne of French cinema) sitting at a desk checking people into the afterlife is just one of the film’s many brilliant touches.

© James Travers 2001

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?