"Les portes de la nuit" is an important movie ,weren't it only because it's Carné's last genuine unquestionable classic ,the last link on the chain which began with "Jenny" in 1936.All these works but one ("hotel du Nord, classic too anyway)" were written by Jacques Prevert :"drole de drame" "quai des brumes ""le jour se leve" "les visiteurs du soir " and the grandiose "les enfants du paradis" which currently makes the IMDb top 250 where it should be ,as it is in France, well ahead of "Leon" "Amelie" or "les quatre cents coups" if there were ,sometimes ,justice in the universe.
After "les enfants du paradis" -which was voted best French film of all time in a poll in 1979 -anything would ne a letdown.That's why the movie met mixed(and even chilly) critical reception when it was released.After the coming of the nouvelle vague whose young Turks used to hate "old hat" Carné ,one could have thought that "les portes de la nuit would be relegated to purgatory eternally.But young genrations have discovered it and a lot of people appreciate it now (as the IMDb rating shows).Carne's eternal subject :love ,true love against the b.......s ,is here given just one night;one night to meet the most beautiful woman in the world ,but also one night to meet the war profiteers,the cowards ,the vile fathers,all that war destroyed .Carné's "realisme" is given a rough ride anyway ,for some settings are almost ...surrealist,evoking Greek tragedy .Prevert/Kosma's words to "les feuilles mortes" are wistful and deeply moving ;"la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment tout doucement sans faire de bruit"(life comes between lovers ,gently,without a sound)
"Les portes de la nuit" ,what a wonderful title.the film begins at dusk,in a metro station that was entirely built in the studio.Carne thoroughly dismissed the label "realisme poetique" because none of his film sets was real (the "hotel du nord" ,the chateau in "les visiteurs du soir" ,the boulevard du crime" in "les enfants du paradis,the list is endless).And the movie ends at dawn ,when Paris awakes.
Carné would never achieve such a peak again.He made commendable works afterward ("Therese Raquin" "les tricheurs" )but those works do not "add up".Still,he remains through his 1936-1945 heyday,one of the absolute masters of the French cinema.
