Le Jour Se Leve

1939 crime drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A guy commits a murder and then hides out in his apartment. A series of flashbacks interrupt the police trying to get to him.

I ask my Facebook friends to give me a year to research and put together a list for, and none of them pay any attention to me or suggest anything usually. My father has brought up 1939 several times; it's a year he claims is the best year in cinema ever. So finally, I agreed to take a look at 1939. Something tells me movies like Le Jour Se Leve are not what he had in mind.

Marcel Carne sure knows how to shoot a staircase. There are two with these rising shots that I just loved, and another overstuffed with nosy apartment dwellers that was also great. I loved a lot about the look of this film. There's realistic shoot-outs as Gabin's apartment is riddled with bullets, even a poor teddy bear finding himself blown off a mantle. Carne uses an early cinema special effect to create bullet holes in glass--shooting bullets through glass. Love those shadows when a light's shot out, a mirror scene where Gabin's eye somehow matches his face to the pitiful countenance of that aforementioned teddy bear, and how the dog trainer guy can pull off the impossible style choice of a cape with pantaloons. There's another shot that I loved with the female Francoise (all the characters in this movie are named Francoise) contrasts with all this dust and the harsh backdrop of the factory Gabin works in, and Jacqueline Laurent in a flowered dress is this magical bit of color in a completely black and white world.

I'm tempted to rate this a little lower because I have trouble remembering the title. I keep wanting to call it Le Sour Je Leve or Le Sour Le Jeve or something. But I also want to put it high on my 1939 list because one of my hobbies is disappointing my father.