Un Carnet de bal

J'adore Ce film! But "Christine"? Where did that come from? I've only ever known it as Un Carnet DE Bal, with Valse Gris permanently etched into my mind.

I saw it first around 1941 when I was 14, during the war, at the long lamented Academy cinema on London's Oxford Street. It turned up there periodically, along with La Femme Du Boulanger, Le Jour SE Leve, The Strange Case of David Gray (a renamed Vampyr), La Fin Du Jour, and some other prewar classics. Great stuff for a schoolboy! Previously I've had it on a censored Korean DVD (the Marseilles sequence had been removed) but now,happily,it's available complete as a gloriously restored Bluray. Gaumont,you have our huge thanks!

It's a magnificent film, a bit wordy perhaps here and there but they're good French words. It's a lasting achievement by a superb cast and crew at the top of their game.

And with great respect let's give thought to Harry Baur and Robert Lynen (Duvivier's Poil de Carotte), both murdered by the Nazis during the occupation.

This is one of the quintessential films of the classic age of French cinema. One just has to look at the credits: directed by Duvivier, with Fernandel, Baur, Jouvet (one of his best roles), Marie Bell, Francoise Rosay... all of them at the peak of their form. And held together musically by Jaubert's haunting theme melody, which I can still hum in the nostalgia cupboard of my memory fifty years after I first heard it.

The story is slight. Actually it is a series of vignettes, strung together by the bittersweet pilgrimage of a woman who sets out to find again the men who signed her first dance card. But that is just a pretext for a marvelous set of character sketches played by a marvelous cast of character actors served by a great character director.

Marie Bell is "Christine". She is recently widowed and going through her possessions when she discovers a dance card from her past. On it are the names of various men she knew - to varying degrees - back when she was a debutante attending a ball. She decides to track these men down and the film follows her as she tries to evaluate whether or not she married the right man, encountering each and considering where her (and their) future may have led had events played out differently. It also becomes apparent that these men, too, have found their lives impacted on by their relationship at the time with her. Some of their stories are tragic, some satisfying, some entertaining: we have a hen-pecked local mayor, a recluse, a priest, an hairdresser - who might not have proved to be her cup of tea, anyway. What "Christine" gradually comes to realise is that regret and wishful thinking are a two way street, and the poignancy of her journey is well encapsulated at the end when she meets a young man, much the same age as she was when her card was being filled. Bell is really effective here, she plays the role with nuance and an endearing charisma especially as she begins to realise the reciprocal effects of the characters' behaviour when they were all around sixteen years old. The dialogue is also quite well written with a degree of humour, frankness and realism that helped ensure director Julien Duvivier could sustain what might otherwise have been rather a long, and episodic, 2½ hours. This is an engaging lifetime retrospective that takes it's time and, I suspect, will leave us all with our own choice of whom she ought to have married (if anyone of them).

Newly widowed Marie Bell (Christine) is clearing out her house when she chances upon her dance-card from her first ball which she attended when she was 16. She is feeling nostalgic and determines to track down each name on the card to see how they are doing in life. Who knows, maybe a love will rekindle?

The film is a series of set pieces as Marie sets about her mission and each name on the card is given a short section. This made the film tolerable to watch as beforehand I was thinking to myself "Oh my goodness, this film is almost 2 and a half hours long!" Well, it doesn't seem like it and that is a credit to the director and the actors and actresses involved. In fact, the film is constantly entertaining even if it does focus on some downbeat situations. You can definitely relate to these people. My favourite story is the one that concerns the priest as it shows how life can move on from sadness in a positive way. I do have 1 question, though - what is that ending about!!? Is that a blossoming romance!!?

In real life, sentimental reflections just make me sad so I don't see the point but this film is worth a watch even if the topic is somewhat asking for trouble. I googled a friend when I was reminiscing of past times and found out that he had become a Hollywood stuntman and had jumped from a plane but his parachute failed to open. Miraculously, he survived as some tree branches broke his fall. He broke every bone in his body and his memory has been affected. I wish I hadn't looked him up! This film is a bit like that but more fun.

One of the great classics of 1930's French cinema and one of cinema's great ;memory' pictures, "Un Carnet de Bal" has, sadly, fallen out of fashion in these more cynical times despite its being a surprisingly hard-nosed and often bleak movie. The plot revolves around recently widowed Christine as she tracks down the men she danced with from an old dance programme of twenty years before, (when she was sweet sixteen). Of course, each of them has changed drastically, almost to the point where they are no longer recognizable; in fact two are already dead and as Christine explores her past some harsh truths emerge.

Marie Bell is a luminous Christine, the great Francoise Rosay is magnificent as the mother of a boy who may have killed himself for love and a whole host of great French actors of the period play the survivors and potential suitors. There are flawless performances from Harry Baur, Pierre Blanchar, Fernandel, Louis Jouvet, Raimu and Pierre Richard-Willm. It also represents the high point in Julien Duvivier's career and was at one time considered among the greatest films ever made. It cries out for rediscovery.