Paradis perdu (1940) - film review

In 1913, a young artist, Pierre falls in love with a beautiful seamstress, Janine.  Their Elysian summer is cut short when war breaks out and Pierre is sent to fight on the front.  After the war, Pierre returns home to find that his wife has died whilst giving birth to their daughter, Jeannette.  Disillusioned and heart-broken, Pierre withdraws on himself and it is a struggle for him to bring up his daughter, the daughter that brought death to the only woman he loved…

Although he is best known for his hugely artistic epics, such as La Roue (1923) and Napoléon (1927), director Abel Gance made a number of conventional melodramas, of which Paradis perdu is a pretty good example.  The darkening mood of the film reflects that of the time in which it was made – in the months leading up to World War II – and this allows Gance to revisit some of the anti-war themes of his earlier film J’Accuse (1919).  The film’s emotional power lies mainly in Fernand Gravey’s poignant performance, one of the most notable in his career.  A young débutante Micheline Presle almost steals the film, however – she plays both the ill-fated wife and the adolescent daughter, and has no difficulty outshining her glamorous (and probably miscast) co-star Elvire Popesco.


© James Travers 2005

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