La belle équipe

The film that became the emblem of the Popular Front does not really present its ideology, on the contrary. Duvivier asserts social determinism, cuts down on solidarity, as if any social dream were impossible. Duvivier keeps the freshness, not the ideal. It doesn't matter if he uses shortcuts that are not very credible. What remains are the shots on the Marne.

La belle equipe or They Were Five is often praised as the highest achievement of Julien Duvivier. It's French poetic realism at its finest - a style whose most remembered representatives are: L'Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo and Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937). When Charles Spaak had just finished the screenplay of La belle equipe the master Jean Renoir got actually very interested in it and wanted to film it, but Julien Duvivier had already bought the rights for it. One can't help but wonder how different the film might have been if Renoir would've filmed it. At least it would've gained much more reputation, but no one can no whether it would have been better, because Duvivier was a very talented filmmaker as well. La belle equipe represents the French optimism (1935-36), it's also a true national film and an interesting contemporary description of the working class.

A group of five penniless workers wander around the streets of Paris. They live in a lousy block of flats, whose landlord put the light out immediately by 9 pm. One night when they are playing cards in the darkness, a pleasant message arrives: they've just won 100, 000 Francs with the lottery. After a quick enthusiasm they realize that the amount won't last through their whole life: so they decide to buy and reconstruct a small resort out of town. Eventually wealth and fortune start to rip the group apart and unpredictable events begin to occur.

Julien Duvivier first shows the miserable life of the workers: he shows them hanging in the streets, leaning on dirty walls and hiding from cops. The happy twist seems quite surreal, but the series of events it occurs is far more interesting. As I mentioned above the film represents the optimism in France during that time: is it possible for the working class to go and work on their own outside of the society? It's quite hard to know what Duvivier thought himself because he filmed two different endings: a pessimist ending for the bourgeoisie and an optimist one for the working class, which is far more well known and often the ending distributed in Europe.

No matter what Duvivier himself thought, - is it possible in this society for the working class to stand up and do what they've dreamed of, La belle equipe is a poetic description of its time. It beautifully exhales the optimism of the short era in France before the WWII, which Jean Renoir tried to prevent with his poetic masterpiece La Grande Illusion. La belle equipe is a true national film.

I am adding to this commentary in June 2016 to point out to any fans of this film that, almost unbelievably after waiting such a long time, it is now actually available in France (since June 1st) on Blu-ray and DVD. This is an issue by Pathé, together with certain others of Duvivier's films and notably the (in)famous "Voici Le Temps Des Assassins". The set comprises a Blu-ray (Zones A B C) plus a DVD (Zone 2 - Europe Only), the film has been remastered and is with French Language Audio AND a choice of French or English Subtitles). This should bring a lot of pleasure to a lot of people who have been awaiting this reissue for many years : shot in 1936 on the Banks of The Marne river some 5 miles from Paris, La Belle Equipe constituted a milestone in French Cinema. Coinciding with the advent of the " Front Populaire ", the film is today remembered for the scenes in the guinguette and the beautiful valse musette " Quand on s'promène au bord de l'eau " sung by actor Jean Gabin and accompanied by roving accordionist Albert Deprince. The film is about a group of factory workers who win the lottery and club together to construct a guingette ( dance hall ) on the banks of the Marne between Nogent and Joinville. All starts well but quarrels develop and women get in the way ! There are in fact two endings, a happy one reluctantly made by director Duvivier to please the public,and a pessimistic one which was the director's own personal choice. For some strange reason the pessimistic ending is always subtitled in German !!! The new issue of the film includes both the pessimistic and the optimistic endings.You may visit today by riverboat the area where the film was shot and until a few years ago could see the actual remains of the "guinguette" built specially for the film !!

When a movie has practically no plot, as is the case for "La Belle Equipe", you at least hope/expect that character development will be its strong suit. But most of the characters here are hollow, with only Jean Gabin standing out (he commands the screen more than any other cast member, with only Viviane Romance giving him any competition). There are hardly any visual innovations as well - like there were in an earlier Julien Duvivier film ("Moon Over Morocco") which also revolved around 5 male friends. In one word, skippable. ** out of 4.

La Belle Equipe / They Were Five (1936): Brief Review -

A fairly realistic take on human greed, friendship and money, which works more with the re-shot optimistic ending than the pessimistic one. Julien Duvivier's Pepe Le Moko with Jean Jabin came the next year, but fortunately, this one realistic film was saved by the negative shades of that poetic surrealism. La Belle Equipe comes out with a funny and lighthearted film first and then turns serious. Like every other known French film of that time, it has that disastrous love angle/triangle, but is survived by the idealistic endings. So, the film has two endings: the first one is pessimistic, and it's covered with jealousy and foolish romance that didn't work for me. The second one is positive, where the femme fatale is defeated by friendship, and I liked this one better. My rating will go straight half a mark down for the negative ending and half a mark up for the optimistic one that I liked (it's final). Still, there are some flaws in the film, as it drags unnecessarily despite a short runtime of 100 minutes (including both endings). Like I said, it has that foolish romance to hurt the intelligence, and it's too annoying for a revolutionary French cinema of that time. Well, that's the case with many Jean Gabin and Jean Renoir films of that time; maybe it's just me who thinks otherwise. Anyways, the film makes a fine one-time watch to learn about French ethics of the 30s, as the storyline is very close to reality. 5 friends win a lottery, and their friendship is tested while they use the money to make themselves well-settled. The performances are decent, the screenplay is a bit problematic, and Julien Duvivier's direction is strictly okay. Actually, topics like human greed and jealousy in love triangles have become dated by the mid-30s, so I don't really think there is anything extraordinary here.

RATING - 6.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.