Categories: cinema
Date: 23 May 2009 09:35:29
Children of Paradise, a 1945 French film I watched this afternoon. At almost 3 hours, this is an intense movie, but one that is so amazing, so beautiful, so poetic even, that it held my rapt attention for almost every minute of its entirety. Everyday life, with its themes of love, jealousy, deception, grief, class -- and add to this murder [hopefully not everyday!] -- is shown in all its glory and tragedy in this story pivoted around the infatuation of 4 men of a beauty they can never possess, and who cannot, or will not [I am not sure], love them as they want to be loved. The stories of these men and their infatuations, plots within plots, are so skillfully weaved and detailed by all involved: director, writer, and the superb actors and actresses. There are numerous acts and performances on stage in this movie, each one so extravagant and real, and alternating between pulling on the heartstrings and causing you to be bowled over with laughter. At the end, the fate of three of three of the characters, Garance [the beauty], Baptiste [a mime] and Lemaître [an actor], and the worlds they inhabit, are left hanging -- a touch which I greatly liked [the fate of the two others is clear]. Add to all of this the fact that this opulent and epic movie was filmed during the German Occupation of WWII, and the mind boggles even more. Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but, for me, a powerful example of what cinema can achieve, and how it can move you.