Le Café du cadran (1947)
Directed by Jean Gehret, Henri Decoin

Film Review

It's hard to imagine how grim life was in France in the half-decade following the end of the Second World War.  Life under the Occupation had been hard enough but when the reconstruction of Europe got underway in 1945 a scarcity of resources and succession of impactful strikes meant that for the majority of households things were unrelentingly miserable.  The mood of this period is evoked in many of the films made in France between 1945 and 1949, including comparatively minor works such as Le Café du Cadran, a minimalist drama that revolves around the deteriorating relationship of a husband and wife hoping and failing to make a better life in Paris.  The film is so gloomy that it could almost qualify as a film noir (indeed the ending pretty well makes it such), and it is unusual in that it is virtually plotless.  It is somewhat less interesting as a piece of drama than as a stark visual testimony of the era in which it is set.

The film is credited to Jean Gehret, his first work as a director apparently, although most of the creative input was from Henri Decoin, whose role had originally been intended as co-screenwriter and production supervisor.  From the film's oppressive mood and horribly bleak denouement you could hardly fail to recognise Decoin as its primary author.  There is an unavoidable similarity of tone and subject matter with Decoin's Non coupable (1947), released the same year, both films featuring a likeable and seemingly harmless man who is manoeuvred onto the dark path by destructive psychological flaws.  Here it is Bernard Blier who falls prey to man's deadlier impulses, a victim of not only deep-rooted insecurities but also a strange curse that seems to attach itself to the Café du Cadran.

Without Blier's nuanced and subtly expressive performance, the film would have little interest.  By this time, Blier had made almost forty screen appearances since his debut in 1937, but he was still comparatively unknown, as often as not cast as one of life's perpetual losers, usually a figure of fun.  He had yet to appear in the films that would begin to establish him as one of French cinema's monstres sacrés -  Clouzot's Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Yves Allégret's Dédée d'Anvers (1948) - but his role as the café owner in Gehret/Decoin's film pretty well established his screen persona for the next decade.  Notice how little by little the forced affability of Blier's portrayal slips away, like the seven veils of Salome, to reveal the pathetic neurotic that lies beneath.  His relationship with his wife (an excellent Blanchette Brunoy) is that of Pygmalion and Galatea, the statue he brings to life merely to destroy it when he fears it will elude his grasp.  By confining the entire film to one location - the titular café - its authors succeed in rendering the protagonists tragic victims of a situation from which there is no possibility of escape.  Gilles Grangier would repeat the formula with his film Au p'tit zouave (1949), just a few years later.

Film Synopsis

Julien Couturier and his wife Louise give up their peaceful life in the Auvergne to run a small bar-café in the thriving heart of Paris.  It isn't long before Louise begins to miss her former life in the provinces but Julien is determined to make a go of it.  Mindful of the value of his clientele, Julien encourages his wife to be more friendly with them and make herself more attractive.  With a wardrobe and coiffure more befitting a Parisian, Louise begins to enjoy her new life, too much for her husband's liking.  To pay for his wife's luxuries, Julien soon finds himself in debt and he becomes involved with an illicit bookmaker.  His fears that Louise is cheating on him are confirmed when she goes out one evening with an older man, the violinist from the café opposite.  It is a betrayal that he cannot forgive...