Film Review
The gloomiest of the poetic realist filmmakers of the 1930s, Julien
Duvivier began work on his most sombre film of the decade just as
Europe was about to be plunged into a second devastating conflagration,
the first act of WWII.
La Fin
du jour would prove to be a depressingly apt title for a film
made on the eve of a war that might well have brought a decisive end to
human civilisation, if not the world (as Abel Gance had envisaged in
his earlier film
La Fin du monde, released in
1931 but horribly prophetic). The film marked something of a
turning point in Duvivier's career, a total rejection of the tempered
optimism that crept into French cinema in the mid-1930s - including his
own
La Belle équipe (1936)
- and a blithe acceptance of the fact that human existence is
inescapably dire and most human beings are irredeemably bad. Even
a spell in Hollywood did little to cure Duvivier of his chronic
pessimism - if anything it reinforced it, making him the grumpy old man
of French cinema when he was barely into his fifth decade.
Whilst it is notionally a comedy-drama rather than a straight drama,
La Fin du jour offers little in the
way of comic relief. It deals with the most depressing of
subjects, and one to which cinema tends to give a wide berth: the
trauma of growing old. Duvivier and his esteemed screenwriter
Charles Spaak (the team that had previously brought us
La
Bandera and
La Belle
équipe) chose to set their film in a retirement home for
a specific kind of person, actors who have fallen on hard times, but it
is nonetheless a film that speaks to us all, confronting us with the
grim realities that await us at the end of our lives, and doing so with
surprising brutality. The fact that the three lead actors (Michel
Simon, Louis Jouvet and Victor Francen) were made up to be much older
than they were lends the film a heightened poignancy (particularly as
Jouvet died comparatively young, at 63). It is worth nothing that
Maurice Jaubert, who supplied the film's magnificently wistful score,
died not long after the film's release, one of the early casualties of
WWII.
As you might expect for a film that deals with the bleakest of
subjects, Duvivier's trademark cynicism is rarely out of sight.
The bitterness and rivalry to which the acting profession is especially
prone are distilled into the deadliest venom which the protagonists
cannot help spitting at each other as they cling to their sad delusions
and old enmities. Some, notably the wretched Cabrissade (Michel
Simon at his most devastatingly pathetic), cannot accept the failure of
their lives and create a fiction for themselves, believing that they
were once great actors. Others, including Saint-Clair (Louis
Jouvet in an unusually antipathetic role), resort to subterfuge (such
as sending old love letters to themselves) to prove they are still
admired. In one memorable night-time tracking shot, where the
camera roves along the labyrinthine corridors of the home, we hear the
applause that the aged actors recall in their dreams - faint echoes of
a happier time, their main (and perhaps only) consolation.
Yet, in the midst of this sadness, delusion and fermenting resentment,
there are also some moments of exquisite tenderness, something that is
rarely found in a Julien Duvivier film. An old couple who have
resisted marriage through fear that this might end in bitter divorce
finally agree to tie the knot so that they cannot be separated.
The embittered classic thespian Marny is moved to tears when he finds
that his work is still remembered and valued by an enthusiastic young
man (François Périer) who persuades him to give a private
reading of
Romeo and Juliet.
Later, Marny finds himself unable to read a mendacious speech at
Cabrissade's funeral and instead improvises a more heartfelt and
sincere tribute to a former comrade. It is these touchingly
humane digressions that give
La Fin
du jour its lyrical charm and poignancy - quite a contrast with
the avalanche of pessimism that Duvivier would habitually offload onto
his audience after the war, in such films as
Panique
(1947) and
Voici le temps des assassins
(1956).
© James Travers 2013
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Next Julien Duvivier film:
Lydia (1941)
Film Synopsis
After a final performance, the faded star Raphael Saint-Clair is ready
to take up residence at the Abbaye de Saint-Jean-la-Rivière, a
retirement home for actors who have fallen on hard times. The man
who is most hostile to Saint-Clair's arrival is his long-time rival
Marny, who considers himself a far greater actor and bitterly resents
Saint-Clair's easily won success. Saint-Clair finds an unlikely
friend in Cabrissade, a deluded old ham who spent his whole career as
an understudy and never once had the opportunity to shine on the
stage. When Cabrissade demands rights for his fellow inmates, the
home's director makes a shocking revelation. The home's owners
have run out of money and have decided to close it down. It
looks as if Cabrissade and his fellow suffers will be split up and sent
to the state-run institutions across France...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.