Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)

Today I almost skipped by film and theater class to finish my cinematography assignment for this week, but I'm glad I didn't. This week we screened Marcel Carne's Les Enfants du Paradis. Actually, Part II, as the lecture part ran longer than expected. So, I will be checking this out of the film library at school so I can see the film in its entirety. This was filmed in Nice during the Nazi occupation which I think makes it a bigger accomplishment. It is French with English subtitles and even has Pierre Renoir playing the part of Jericho. I loved this beautiful complicated love story. Right now we are discussing campiness of films that depict theater, theater actors or theater life. Les Enfants du Paradis involves a group of actors in a strange relationship with each other.


Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) is a theater mime who falls in love with a woman he helps on the Boulevard de Crime, Garance (Arletty). Garance is a carefree, spirited woman who also has three other admirers. She is briefly involved with Frederick (Pierre Brasseur), a pretentious self-involved actor, Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), a self described thief who does a little bit of murdering, and Count Eduard de Montray (Louis Salou), a wealthy man who wishes to obtain Garance. We missed the part where Garance and Baptiste fall in love. Baptiste leaves Garance because he doesn't agree with her assertion that "love is simple". We came in around the part where Frederick is becoming a great actor and insults the writers of his play. Apparently before that Garance gets into trouble because of Lacenaire and Count de Montray offers to bail her out if she becomes his woman. She leaves France to travel with Count de Montray and away from Baptiste. Baptiste then marries Nathalie (Maria Casares), a very cute and sweet actress in his show who adores him, even though she knows he's still desperately in love with Garance. Garance comes back and watches Baptiste's show nightly anonymously from a private box. Frederick gets seated in her private box and asks her where she has been. He tells her that she doesn't look happy. She says she is not happy, but not especially sad and says that "it's like a spring in the music box broke. It's the same tune but a different key." She tells Frederick that even though she's traveled the world with her sugar daddy, the Count, she can't stop thinking about Baptiste and is still in love with him. Frederick feels jealousy for the first time and is happy that he now has something to tap into to play Othello, the only character that has eluded him. She tells Frederick to tell Baptiste that she is in town briefly if he'd like to see her. However, Jericho has found out as well and tells Nathalie that Garance is there. Nathalie sends their young son to tell Garance that they are all happy together. He asks her if she is alone and she says yes. Garance seems so sad you can actually feel her loneliness. She leaves as Frederick tells Baptiste Garance is there. In the middle of his performance, he looks into his lovely wife's face and stops his performance and runs to the box but Garance has already left. He then becomes very depressed and holes up in a room in a boarding house and stops performing because he realizes how unhappy he has been without her.


The Count catches on that Garance's nightly pilgrimages to the Funambules is because she is in love with someone there and he wants to kill them. She has told the Count that she doesn't love him and loves someone else. Garance and The Count attend Othello and during the break, Frederick meets The Count and Lacenaire. The three men get into a heated discussion, because Eduard has already met Lacenaire and learns of his past and his association with Garance. Eduard also suspects that Frederick is the man Garance is in love with. Meanwhile, Garance wanders out into the lobby only to run into Baptiste who has been looking for her. They run outside to a balcony and profess their love for each other. Baptiste tells her he regrets not believing her when she says that love is simple. They kiss and Lacenaire reveals to Eduard that Baptiste is the one she loves. Eduard and Frederick are to duel in the morning and Garance and Baptiste run to his room. They spend the night together and both seem so happy to have found each other again. The next morning Nathalie comes with their young son, not realizing that Garance has spent the night. She is very angry because she has stood by him and adores him, even though she knew he didn't love her back the same way. She also confronts Garance and tells her it must be so easy to come and go as you please, be missed and come back with memories enhancing your presence. Garance tells Nathalie that even though she has been everywhere, Baptiste was always there with her and that she never stopped loving him. Garance leaves and Baptiste chases after her, leaving Nathalie and their son behind as he searches for Garance in a crowd. In the closing scene, Baptiste is seemingly swallowed by the crowd. There is no real resolution. Does he ever find her again? Why did Lacenaire want to cause such trouble for the other men? His motive was unclear. I loved this movie and hope to see it again soon. I was reading the message board for this movie and I have to quote this person with the username unsolvedfan. Many people had said how much they felt for Baptiste until he leaves Nathalie and his son behind to chase after Garance and this user has this to say about it. "I would like to point out that I do not agree with the comments about Baptiste being a "bastard." I can only reply by adapting a line from this film. It was not Baptiste himself who betrayed his wife, it was fate that did the betraying. In other words, there is no stopping love and desire at a certain point. Devastating and sad, but not cruel." Very poignant. A must see, if you ever get the chance.