This late 50s French study of disaffected youth (in their early 20's, actually--"grown up", but not yet settled down into the adult world) probably missed the mark by a mile in terms of being an accurate depiction of 1958 French youth (don't virtually ALL youth films made by adults do this? The ones that don't--River's Edge comes to mind-- are rare indeed), but director-writer Marcel Carne, of Les Enfants du Paradis fame, is too accurate an observer of humanity to NOT provide an insightful view of the essence of these characters. In a sense, the details are not important--you could change the details and set this film today and it would work just as well--but the loneliness and insecurity and superficial passion and self-righteous anger of the characters is captured well. The young Pierre Brice and Jean-Paul Belmondo are in supporting roles, but leads Jacques Charrier, Laurent Terzieff, Pascale Petit, and Andrea Parisy play the roles with subtlety and depth. There is also a fine jazz score, which you can get on the CD JAZZ IN PARIS--JAZZ & CINEMA VOL. 2. Unlike some who have commented on the film, I don't really see director-writer Carne as sitting in judgment on these characters--he seems as though he is an objective observer to me. Of course, these middle-class characters may seem like people who are spoiled and have nothing to whine about to some working-class viewers of the film, and I think Carne is certainly aware of this. For this American viewer (I watched a dubbed, fairly literally I'd say, version of this titled THE CHEATERS), the film provides an interesting window into the France of the 1950s. It also is self-consciously poetic (the scene on the ledge, saving the cat, is but one example of this) and has intellectual aspirations in that charming way that only French films can get away with--I can imagine the heavy-handed, melodramatic, shallow way this kind of material would have been handled by an American studio production, and the sensationalistic, moralistic, suggestive way this kind of material would have been handled by American drive-in/exploitation filmmakers. I feel that Marcel Carne has captured the essence of that period between, say, high school graduation and when, by one's early 30s, people have largely settled into a routine, whatever that routine may be. Those willing to watch the film with an open mind and not fire away at the many easy targets it offers should find a serious and valuable study of people in their early twenties. And even if you don't want to do that, you can go in the other room while the film is playing and simply enjoy the fine soundtrack, with great 50s jazz and instrumental pop, including the wonderful original score by an American "Jazz at the Philharmonic" group including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz (spelled "goetz" in the credits), Roy Eldridge, and Ray Brown.
