Le Quai des brumes (1938)
Directed by Marcel Carné

Film Review

The most perfect example of French poetic realism is arguably Le Quai des brumes, a doom-laden masterpiece which, with its ill-fated romance, shady underworld characters and brutal fatalism, evokes the essence of classic film noir at its most primitive and most eloquent. This is the film that cemented the partnership of director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert, who had drawn immediate critical attention with their previous two films  - Jenny (1936) and Drôle de drame (1936) - and who would go on to jointly craft some of the most memorable offerings in French cinema - Le Jour se lève (1939), Les Visiteurs du soir (1942) and their magnum opus Les Enfants du paradis (1945).  Carné's immense technical skill and talent for drenching his films in atmosphere, coupled with Prévert's flair for making seemingly banal dialogue sound poetic, are powerfully illustrated in Le Quai des brumes, which deserves its reputation as one of the greatest of all French films, even if it does make you want to throw yourself off the nearest high tower.

One's immediate impression of this film is how persistently and intensely gloomy it is.  The sets, interiors and exteriors, are constantly steeped in fog and shadows.  There is an aura of doom and decay which infects every character with a profound sense of hopelessness, making them resemble condemned men solemnly awaiting their execution.   The eternal fog is a physical manifestation of the apathy that has drained the resolve of the protagonists, icy wreaths of mist that bind them to their fate.  In true film noir fashion, Le Quai des brumes is essentially about the illusion of freedom and the impossibility of escaping from one's personal destiny.  Virtually all of the characters in the film dream of a better life, but lack the resolve or the opportunity to make their dreams a reality.  It is as if the fog and the shadows which envelop them, like matted cobwebs, are holding them back, pinning them to their respective grooves until death appears and brings a merciful release, the only escape from this sodden swamp of undiluted misery.  No, it probably isn't the best advertising campaign the town of Le Havre could have wished for.

As befits its classic status, Le Quai des brumes offers a plethora of talent on both sides of the camera.  The cast brings together some of the finest French actors of the time, including four monstres sacrés - Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Michel Simon and Pierre Brasseur - and a host of exceptionally gifted character actors -  Édouard Delmont, Raymond Aimos, Robert Le Vigan and René Génin - not forgetting the cute little white dog who shamelessly outstages every actor he shares a shot with.   Gabin was, by this stage, a major star of French cinema, having grown to epitomise the ordinary working class hero in such films as Jean Renoir's La Grande illusion (1937) and Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937).  Le Quai des brumes was the first of four films in which Gabin and Morgan appeared together, forming one of French cinema's most memorable romantic pairings. Although they fell deeply in love whilst making this film, the two actors did not pursue an off-screen romance, as Morgan had no interest in starting an affair with a married man.  The intensity of the feelings that Gabin and Morgan had for one another is evident in the scene in which they kiss, a scene that is charged with electrifying eroticism and tragic poignancy.   It was only two films back that Michèle Morgan, aged 17, had had her first leading role, opposite Raimu in Gribouille (1937).  It was the role of Nelly in Le Quai des brumes that established her as a star and made her one of the most sought after screen actresses of her generation.

Although it is Gabin and Morgan who dominate this film - looking uncannily like Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944) - they do not completely eclipse the contributions from their illustrious co-stars.  In one of his most chilling performances, Michel Simon provides the perfect counterpoint to Gabin's morally flawed but likeable hero, playing the villain Zabel as a fiend who barely manages to conceal his diabolical intent beneath a thin veneer of respectability.  As vile as his character is, Simon still manages to imbue him with a smattering of pathos - his Zabel is not so much inherently evil as a weak man governed by impulses that he cannot control.  Equally, Pierre Brasseur brings depth and subtle menace to his interpretation of the vicious pimp Lucien, defying the familiar gangster stereotype by playing him less as a mindless thug and more as a tragically insecure loser.  Robert Le Vigan steals the focus early on in the film with a humorously melancholic portrayal of an artist who has clearly been reading too much Sartre - his sudden departure (à la Reggie Perrin) allows Prévert to slip in some pretty sick black humour later on.

The credits on the other side of the camera are no less impressive.  The art design was by none other than Alexandre Trauner, whose talent for creating realistic settings with a character and mood that aligns perfectly with the substance of the film is best illustrated by his atmospheric designs for Le Quai des brumes.  Trauner's designs are beautifully complemented by Eugene Schufftan's cinematography, which has echoes of German expressionism with its stark black and white tones and use of shadow to convey lurking menace and a sense of inescapable doom.  It is Schufftan's inspired lighting and camerawork choices which give the film its striking realism, most visibly in the exterior location sequences which were shot in Le Havre, bringing a hint of near-documentary realism which is seldom found in French cinema of this era.   The film was edited by René Le Hénaff, a master of his metier who would later distinguish himself as a film director with such films as Le Colonel Chabert (1943).  Composer Maurice Jaubert contributes one of his most celebrated scores, including the film's haunting theme which, with its evocation of a violent sea storm, allows us to visualise  the dark forces that will ensnare the protagonists and propel them to their doom.  And, in case you were wondering, Miss Morgan's eye-catching see-through raincoat was designed by Coco Chanel.

Le Quai des brumes was not unanimously well-received by the critics when it was first released in 1938.  Its ominous mood - doubtless influenced by the prevailing political situation in France (the failure of the Popular Front  coalition government) and wider political unrest (the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy) - made it a hard sell and some were quick to dismiss it as pro-Fascist propaganda.  A review in a July edition of the Parisian newspaper Le Petit journal described it as a film noir that is both immoral and demoralising, one that could only have a harmful effect on the public. In 1940, a spokesman of the Vichy government publicly stated: "If we lost the war, it was because of Le Quai des brumes" - an interesting interpretation of events.  Others were far more positive in their assessment of the film and praised it for its artistic strengths and the way in which it captured the mood of the time.  The film's adverse press did not prevent it from being a commercial success and its merits were honoured when it won the Prix Louis Delluc and a special prize at the 1938 Venice Film Festival.  Today, Le Quai des brumes is highly regarded, considered not only one of Marcel Carné's finest achievements but also one of the absolute highpoints of French filmmaking in the 1930s.  The film's influence can be felt in two of the most significant aesthetic developments in the cinema of the following decade, Italian neo-realism and classic American film noir, as well as in the early films of Ingmar Bergman, whose Port of Call (1948) feels like an affectionate homage to Le Quai des brumes.

Film Synopsis

Jean, a deserter from the French colonial army, arrives in the misty port of Le Havre where he immediately strikes up a rapport with the owner of an inn frequented by the town's lowlife.  It is here that he meets Nelly, a young woman who has run away from her intimidating guardian Zabel, the owner of a bric-à-brac shop who is mixed up with gangsters.  An artist takes pity on Jean and drowns himself so that he can furnish him with clothes, money and a new identity.  Scarcely able to believe this stroke of good fortune, Jean scours the harbour and finds a captain who is willing to give him passage to South Africa.   Whilst he is eager to leave the country and begin a new life elsewhere, Jean is held back by his love for Nelly.  He makes a dangerous enemy when he takes a stand against Nelly's other admirer, a cruel pimp named Lucien.  It is Zabel's obsessive interest in Nelly and Lucien's desire for revenge that will decide Jean's fate...