So this is one of those double-period movies: It’s made in 1945, so is like 70 years old, but then it’s about Paris in the 1830s. True story: I was actually going to wonder why they used to make movies like that, but now just make regular period pieces, and then I realized how utterly stupid that thought was. And then I let you know that I thought it anyway. You’re welcome.

SO ANYWAY: This is a weird mix of history and fiction. The plot is wholly fictional, but some of the main characters in it are historical — Baptiste Deburau, a dude who revolutionized miming and was super-famous back then; Frédérick Lemaître, a famous actor; and Lacenaire, a famous dandy and criminal.

Also real is the setting where the movie takes place — the pantomime theatre (the Funambules) and the upscale Grand Theater, both in this downscale district of unruly plebes. (The “paradis” in the title of the movie is the cheap seats way up high in the theatres.) As the movie starts, we see our characters starting their careers there. Baptiste is derided by his father who runs the theatre troupe, but finally gets a chance to go onstage; Lemaître begs for a place in the Funambules and then leaves when he realizes that he can’t actually speak in the pantomime theatre; and Lacenaire is a petty crimelord.

And so the movie sets them up with a love… square, I guess? All of them are interested in this woman, Garance, who has some interest in each of them, but is unwilling to be tied down to any of them. Or maybe it’s a pentagon, because there’s also a rich Count who also is interested in her.

And so this first half of the movie is a bit slow. We see a lot of pantomime (they show most of a show, intercut with backstage scenes, as kind of a show-within-a-show), we see these different dudes each trying to seduce Garance, and then she’s forced to take up with the count as a gambit to avoid imprisonment. It’s kind of all just a sequence of events without a lot of connection or momentum — although it is worth noting that the Garance romance bits are mostly a lot better than generic Hollywood romance bullshit of that era (or, really, this).

But at any rate, then starts the second half of the movie, which is like a totally separate movie[1] and takes place six years later. Baptiste and Lemaître are now famous; Lacenaire has been out in the countryside avoiding the law from misc. murders and felonies, but is now back in town; and Garance and her count — together but not married — are back in Paris for a visit as well.

And this is where the movie gets legit great, because now all these characters start coming together and meeting back up again. And they’re different people, in different circumstances, than they were when they first knew each other when they were young — but the past, as always, shapes the present, and they’re drawn into each other’s orbits to results that (as Lacenaire notes in a speech) are both tragic and comic. Old loves, old jealousies, old friendships, all play out in ways that largely avoid cliche or obviousness. There’s a part near the end, where you think that things are going to go one of two ways… and it goes neither of them, and the end itself is surprisingly untidy and open for a movie of this sort. Key plot and character elements are resolved, but there are so many questions still.

All in all, I’m surprised this one isn’t higher up the list. According to Wikipedia, it was voted the Best Film Ever by a panel of French critics in 1995; I think that’s maybe too strong, but if this had been in the top 10 on this list, it would not have been at all out of place.

  1. TRUE FACTS that I found out after watching the movie: It was filmed as two separate movies, because the movie was made during Nazi occupation of France, and they banned movies more than 90 minutes long. So he just made two 90 minute movies, intending them to be seen as one unit. Nothing about this movie says “filmed while France was under Nazi occupation,” but there it is. ↩︎