Film Review
Au-delà des grilles (a.k.a.
Le Mura di Malapaga) was
the film that first brought international acclaim to up-and-coming director
René Clément, a Franco-Italian production that received the
Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1951. (This was the second
French film to win the award after Maurice Cloche's much-vaunted biopic
Monsieur Vincent, two years
previously). Prior to this, Clément had notched up two box office
triumphs with his impressive war-time dramas
La Bataille du rail (1946)
and
Le Père tranquille
(1946) - an auspicious start to an illustrious filmmaking career that would
deliver many notable critical and commercial successes.
Gervaise (1956),
Plein soleil (1960) and
Les Félins (1964) - his three
most stylish films - reveal a gifted but hard-to-pin-down director who appears
to be obsessed with avoiding being pigeonholed. The rich diversity
of Clément's oeuvre is impressive but this - along with his knack
of winning awards and filling cinema theatres - prevented him from achieving
the status of a legitimate auteur that was enjoyed by his more brazenly iconoclastic
Nouvelle Vague contemporaries.
Despite winning an Oscar (as well as Best Actress award at Cannes for its
female star Isa Miranda(,
Au-delà des grilles is one of René
Clément's most overlooked films, perhaps because it too closely resembles
the poetic realist melodramas of an earlier decade (most visibly Marcel Carné
Le Quai des brumes).
The film's main strength is a subtly subversive script supplied by the unbeatable
team of Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, who are best remembered today for
their remarkable collaborations with director Claude-Autant Lara -
Douce (1943),
Le Diable au corps (1947),
L'Auberge rouge (1951).
Far from emulating the poetic realist aesthetic (which had by this time well
and truly run its course), Aurenche and Bost give this an ironic twist that
allows them to weave a complex study in human nature that is both unsettlingly
ambiguous and chillingly dark.
It is the unfathomable perversities of the subconscious mind, not the workings
of some mythical cosmic mischief-maker, that decide the fate of the protagonists
in this, Clément's bleakest film. Marta's compassion for the
fugitive Pierre is as understandable as her daughter's feelings of envy when
the stranger takes her place in her mother's affection. What is harder
to make sense of is the strength of feeling that Pierre - the disillusioned
homicidal lover - develops for a woman he barely knows, a bond of such magnitude
that it ultimately overcomes his instinct for self-preservation. In
contrast with classic poetic realism, which makes scant allowance for free
will, it is Pierre himself who makes the fatal call that will lead to his
destruction. The neo-realist style which Clément skilfully appropriates
for his film (with much of it shot on location in the busy port of Genoa)
further serves to distance it from the old school fatalism of the 1930s French
melodrama, bringing a modern naturalist sheen to the performances that can
only heighten its crushing emotional impact.
For its male lead Jean Gabin, this was a crucial film, its popularity effectively
helping to re-launch his screen career in France after the war, following
an aborted attempt to 'make it big' in Hollywood in the early 1940s.
On his return to his homeland, the actor had scored a moderate success in
Georges Lacombe's
Martin Roumagnac
(1946), alongside his real-life lover Marlene Dietrich. This film and
its immediate successor, Raymond Lamy's prototypical polar
Miroir (1947), had been panned by the
critics to the extent that Gabin's future career in France was far from assured.
The national and international success of
Au-delà des grilles did
not allow Gabin to instantly reclaim his erstwhile iconic status but it put
him in a place where subsequent hits - such as Jacques Becker's
Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)
and Jean-Paul Le Chanois's
Les Misérables
(1958) - would guarantee his return as a leading light of European
cinema.
© James Travers 2022
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next René Clément film:
Le Château de verre (1950)
Film Synopsis
Pierre is on the run from the police, careful to evade capture
after murdering the mistress who dared to be unfaithful to him. He
is safe in a cargo ship bound for the Italian port of Genoa when he is suddenly
afflicted with a raging toothache. Unable to bear the pain, he steals
away from the ship and sets out in search of a dentist, but in doing so his
wallet is stolen. Without a penny to his name, things look bleak for
the fugitive, and then he meets Marta, a young waitress in a restaurant.
Like Pierre, she has been unlucky in love. After breaking up with her
cheating husband, she lives alone with her teenage daughter, Cecchina.
Taking pity on the desperate runaway, Marta offers him what little help she
can, and it is through her kind support that Pierre manages to avoid being
caught by his determined pursuers. Cecchina's attitude towards him
is far less benign, however. Realising that her mother is falling in
love with Pierre, the girl becomes bitterly jealous and sees him as an unwelcome
rival for her mother's affections. Concealing her growing hatred for
the fugitive, Cecchina offers to help him find his way back to the ship that
is still docked in the port. Even with the prospect of escape within
his grasp, Pierre just cannot bring himself to leave Marta, but by staying
in Genoa he seals his fate. Cecchina's obsessive jealousy leads her
to betray him to the authorities.
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.