Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, when acts of both revenge and kindness turn him into front-page news. Also starring the blue-eyed phenomenon Michèle Morgan in her first major role, and the menacing Michel Simon, Port of Shadows (Le Quai des brumes) starkly portrays an underworld of lonely souls wrestling with their own destinies. Based on the novel by Pierre Mac Orlan, the inimitable team of director Marcel Carné and writer Jacques Prévert deliver a quintessential example of poetic realism, one of the classics of the golden age of French cinema.On a foggy highway, a lonely soldier hitches a ride and ends up in a lonely bar on the outskirts of town, where lost souls gather for a melancholy repast. The soldier is Jean (Jean Gabin), a deserter on the run whose flight is interrupted when he meets sad runaway Nelly (Michele Morgan) and falls in love. He becomes entwined in the troubles of her life, notably the lascivious guardian (Michel Simon) who lusts after Nelly and attempts to blackmail Jean, and a cocky, hot-headed gangster (Pierre Brasseur) who tries to scare Jean off, only to be humiliated in front his men and the town. It’s not hard to see where this spiral of threats and confrontations is leading (the title, after all, translates to “Port of Shadows,” as ominous a title as any American film noir, especially in a small town where everyone’s lives become tightly wound together. Director Marcel Carné and writer Jacques Prévert (who went on to collaborate on the French masterpiece Children of Paradise) infuse the film with a sense of dignity and quiet poetry. At night the port town is like a world in the clouds, cut off from the rest of the world, where all the sordid yearnings and desperate plans of the ambitious players take on a mythic resonance. It’s only by light of day that everything returns to its shabby place. A classic of French poetic realism. –Sean Axmaker
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March 5, 2010
#1
What happens when the director shoots a movie without a plot or a point or even a script and lets his famous actors improvise amok? The Port of Shadows. Yes, a few frames of the moody cinematography are worth watching, but you can see one of them for free on the box art. If you like watching high speed artistic train wrecks in super slow motion, then this is the movie for you. It’s a 1 star movie plus 1 star for it’s historical significance plus 1 star for Criterion’s excellent transfer.
March 5, 2010
#2
Marcel Carne made Le quai de brumes in 1939. And you know what I mean with it.
In fact the film turns around a dock and an expected voyage ; the last detail for get the happiness between two lovers, but the long arm of the fate will avoid the deserved happy ending.
Carne and Prevert made a succesful couple and even a weird agreement in the whole structure of several films.
And this poetic gaze will originate works of undeniable beauty as this one.
It’s fundamental for you , if you’re really interested as me about the Carne films watch the first of greatful movies abou this film maker, because you’ll find out in this one some vital clues that will feed the following works.
Jean Cocteau was emerging also but with a clear difference , the approach of this poet is filled by the mythological rapture translated to the modern times.
Back to Carne , I have in my personal collections the most remarkable films of Carne.
If you watch Le jour se leve , by instance , isolatedly from the whole poetic context , you may easily to make a mistake about the meaning of this.
All the great authors and artists develop a solid structure thta grows progressively with his grow up process. Beethoven, Michelangelo , Shakespeare or William Blake are consistent examples who define the significance of this issue.
Obviously , Carne is an universe in himself . You’ll watch Paris as a background who will permeate your soul , due the evident contrast between the beauty locations of this city light and the clouds of fate that surround the characters , the love is expressed to such high poetic levels , that the world who wants avoid the deserved triumph is an unconscious part of the dark fate.
Marcel Carne will show you why the cinema is art.
March 5, 2010
#3
Marcel Carne is well known for directing Children of Paradise, a quaint but inoffensive film that’s actually mediocre. Quai des Brumes (Port of Shadows) is a little long-winded at times, perhaps too poetic, but it so effectively captures the pessimistic mood of pre-war France. And it’s always great to watch Gabin in a good role, slapping around some malcontent while scoring with the female lead. He is superb. Some reviewers have criticized the role of the drunk and yes, it is a bit over the top, but this really is nitpicking. Quai des Brumes with all its flaws is still one of Carne’s best.
March 5, 2010
#4
I first watched this film in an international film class in college. It struck me the first time I saw it, and I had to have it. It’s an excellent film, way ahead of it’s time. It mixes poetry and realism to the point of perfection. Anyone who appreciates film will love this one.
March 5, 2010
#5
Marcel Carné’s PORT OF SHADOWS (Le Quai des Brumes) belongs to the list of movies we had to see in school in the seventies. This film is part of the French cultural heritage and was regularly showed by the film clubs of our schools. Some of the greatest actors of that period appear in PORT OF SHADOWS : Jean Gabin, THE unquestionable star of French cinema from the beginning of the 30′s until the beginning of the 70′s, Michèle Morgan who attained a cult status with this film she shot while she was 17 years old, the Swiss actor Michel Simon (Zabel) who portrayed numerous unforgettable characters during his long career on the screen (1924-1975), Pierre Brasseur who’s excellent as Lucien the hoodlum.
Great actors and also great dialogues written by Jacques Prévert, a poet-artist often associated with the Poetic Realism genre of that period. Lines as “Tu as de beaux yeux, tu sais” (You do have beautiful eyes, you know) or “Vite, on est pressé” (Hurry, we don’t have much time left) said by Gabin to Morgan are sentences you don’t easily forget if you happen to like PORT OF SHADOWS.
A DVD zone your library.