Falbalas (1945)
Directed by Jacques Becker

Film Review

With two respectable crime dramas under his belt - Dernier atout (1942) and Goupi mains rouges (1943) - director Jacques Becker made a surprising detour for his third feature, into the perfumed salons of Parisian haute couture.  Falbalas could easily have been just another routine melodrama, but Becker's fascination with the darker side of human nature, in particular that innate quality that we all have for delusion and self-destruction, led him to make a far more interesting and disturbing film, about the destructive potency of an amorous infatuation.  Daring for its time, the film was not as well received by critics and audiences as it might have been on its first release.  Since, it has come to be judged far more favourably and represents something of a milestone in French cinema, marking the transition from the poetic realism of the 1930s to the grittier realism of the post-war era.

It helps that the film is impeccably cast, with Raymond Rouleau giving the performance of his career as the seemingly heartless couturier who has his whole world turned inside out when he falls under the spell of Micheline Presle at her most radiant.  There are some fine supporting contributions, from a talented ensemble that includes Jean Chevrier, Gabrielle Dorziat and Jeanne Fusier-Gir, but it is the sublime pairing of Rouleau and Presle that gives the film its enduring lustre and makes it so utterly enthralling.  With its brooding, doom-laden photography, intense performances and razor-sharp editing, Falbalas feels more like a film noir thriller than a conventional melodrama, and this is particularly evident in the darkly lyrical final sequences which provide the most authentic depiction of a man's descent into madness.

Filming on Falbalas began almost immediately after the Liberation of France by the Allies in 1944.  However, endless problems with power cuts and scarcity of resources delayed the production and it was not until July 1945 that it was finally released.  It is reported that Becker was not entirely pleased with the film, as it was set in a world that was too far removed from his own experience.  It is interesting that Becker's next film, another romantic drama titled Antoine et Antoinette (1947), is anchored solidly in the world of the proletariat, a precursor of the social realist (kitchen sink) drama that would come to the fore in the 1950s.  Falbalas, by contrast, is a far more stylised film that feels like a kind of twisted fairytale, in which neither of the two main characters, Philippe and Micheline, appears to have a firm grip on reality, as both are in search of an unattainable ideal.  A haunting and evocative work, Falbalas reveals a more humane and poetic side to Jacques Becker than is evident in his subsequent work, and it is not hard to see why it is considered one of his best films.

Film Synopsis

Philippe Clarence is the genius couturier who runs one of the most successful fashion houses in Paris.  His unsurpassed talent for design is matched only by the ease with which he draws women towards him, women he toys with whilst they amuse him, and then casually discards at his leisure.  So desperately infatuated with him is his former mistress Anne-Marie that she cannot bear to be far from him, so she lives in his shadow, content merely to be his head of sales.  Whilst he delights in the extraordinary power he has over the fair sex, Philippe has never known true love - until the day Micheline walks into his life.

When they meet for the first time Micheline is engaged to another man, Philippe's fabric supplier Daniel Rousseau.  Like countless women before her, Micheline is immediately bowled over by the couturier's marvellous creations and his smooth, seductive charm.  By the time Philippe realises he is in love with Micheline she has already seen through him and, put off by his cynicism, she tries to distance herself from him.  With his latest collection due to be exhibited in a few days' time, Philippe's state of mind is greatly perturbed by this unexpected rejection, and Annie-Marie's sudden suicide doesn't help matters.

Once it is apparent to him that Micheline has no intention of returning to him, Philippe become increasingly prone to acts of folly.  After putting the finishing touches to his last masterpiece - a magnificent wedding dress for the woman he has lost his heart and soul to - he goes missing for a while, returning only on the day when his new collection is to be shown to an admiring public.  By now, he is reduced to a vague ghost of a man, totally consumed by the delusion of love and living a fantasy that is about to take him right over the edge of a precipice...