Film Review
Sci-fi is not a genre that is well-represented in French cinema, and
until recently it was practically non-existent, and this in spite of
the fact that France had a crucial part to play in the origination of
science-fiction, through the novels of Jules Verne. The number of
French sci-fi features made before 1950 barely makes it into double
figures, and most of these are creaking potboilers that are hardly
worth the trouble of watching. Richard Pottier's
Le Monde tremblera (a.k.a.
La Révolte des vivants) is
one of the few pre-WWII sci-films that stands up reasonably well today,
although it is more a melodrama-cum-morality piece with sci-fi
trimmings than a full-blown sci-fi movie in the traditional
sense. For non-sci-fi addicts, the film's main appeal is its
exceptional cast, which includes Madeleine Sologne and Erich von
Stroheim, who would be memorably reunited in
La Foire aux chimères
(1946).
Right from the off, it's pretty clear that Pottier, not the most
inspired or original of filmmakers, is taking his cue from an earlier
sci-fi classic, namely James Whale's
Frankenstein
(1931). There's a driven young scientist (Claude Dauphin at his
creepiest) who sacrifices love for his demonic researches, a laboratory
generously fitted out with gizmos, flashing lights and buzzing
electrical discharges, and a monstrous creation that ruins lives and
threatens to overturn the social order without meaning to. The
ultimate fate of the scientist and his monster mirror those in Whale's
film, with the unwashed masses rising up in their - er - dozens, to
thwart the evil that has been unleashed on the world (hence the film's
alternative title).
Yet
Le Monde tremblera is
more than just a crafty homage to Universal's
Frankenstein movies; it is actually
a canny reworking of the themes underpinning Mary Shelley's famous
Gothic novel - the morality of scientific endeavour and man's striving
to claim mastery over his own destiny. The film looks as if it
was based on a novel by H.G. Wells but in fact it is adapted from a
work (
La Machine à
prédire la mort) by a lesser known pair of writers,
Charles Robert-Dumas and Roger-Francis Didelot. Misguided
scientists abound in science-fiction and, like Dr Frankenstein, the
protagonist of Robert-Dumas and Didelot's novel is another vain
Faustian fool who sells his soul in the pursuit of what we would now
term 'irresponsible science'. Compared with the film's other
scientist (Roger Duchesne's nice Dr Gérard Gallois), who prefers
healing sick children to telling people when they will die, Dr Durand
is positively evil.
Now that analysis of a person's DNA can give an accurate predictor of
his or her life expectancy, the premise of
Le Monde tremblera is no longer the
stuff of fantasy but has become a very real possibility. The
moral concerns that the film raises are now real concerns that have
far-reaching consequences for both individuals and society, if not
humanity. Indeed, this could well be the most significant
development in human history, knowing at birth the date on which an
individual is most likely to die. Pottier's little-known film
never had a greater resonance than it has today, and many of the moral
issues relating to predicted life expectancy are effectively addressed
in the course of the film.
Made on the eve of WWII,
Le Monde
tremblera has an unmistakeable aura of apocalyptic doom about
it, very similar to what we find in William Cameron Menzies's
Things
to Come (1936) and Abel Gance's
J'Accuse
(1938). When the implications of Dr Durand's revolutionary death
predictor start to become apparent, the mood of the piece darkens
considerably - it shifts abruptly from dark melodrama to desperately
bleak film noir (a transition that seems to be a hallmark of H.G. Couzot,
here employed as a screenwriter). After
a brief comic interlude in which Armand
Bernard, unhappy at being told he will live to a hundred, tries in vain
to kill himself, there is a frenzied descent into chaos as the world's
stock markets come crashing down and everyone rises up against Durand
and his diabolical contraption. The Luddite spirit saves the day
in the end, but just four months after the film's release in May 1939
the world really would shake...
Le
Monde tremblera is a film that now seems eerily prophetic,
offering a glimpse perhaps of the nightmare that is yet to come.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Richard Pottier film:
Huit hommes dans un château (1942)
Film Synopsis
With capital supplied by the unscrupulous banker Emil Lasser, Dr Jean
Durand succeeds in creating a machine that can predict, to the nearest
minute, when an individual will die. A ruthless man facing
financial ruin, Lasser intends using Durand's invention for a crooked
life insurance business, but the scientist refuses to go along with the
scheme, even though he is in love with Lasser's daughter,
Marie-France. Subjecting himself to Durand's machine, Lasser
learns he has only a few days left to live. He ends up committing
suicide, after leaving a note to his daughter warning her to stay away
from Durand. As Marie-France embarks on a new romance with
Durand's best friend Dr Gérard Gallois, Durand begins
capitalising on his invention and soon has a steady stream of clients
eager to know the exact date of their demise. The implications of
Durand's discovery soon hits home when people, knowing they have only a
short time to live, begin behaving in an irresponsible manner.
Durand realises too late that he has created a
monster...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.