gavin6942 The theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan (Arletty) and the four men who love her: the mime Baptiste Debureau (Jean-Louis Barrault), the actor Frédérick Lemaître (Pierre Brasseur), the thief Pierre François Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), and the aristocrat Édouard de Montray (Louis Salou).This film is often called the French "Gone With the Wind". That seems really insulting. While the comparison makes sense in vague terms -- both are long, epic stories about a woman with multiple loves -- to compare this artistic vision to the Civil War melodrama is unfair. One clearly is better than the other. (Hint: The French one.) What is most incredible about this film is its creation during the Nazi occupation. How is it possible they were able to get such a great film, and such a large production, done while being oppressed? Apparently resistance fighters worked on the set, too, which seems worthy of a documentary or two.

kenjha This drama explores the relationships of a group of Parisians. The filmmakers are operating under the theory that great length equals great film. It seems as though about half an hour of the film is devoted to stage performances that serve no purpose other than padding the running time. Carne does a good job of conveying the hustle and bustle of Paris in the 19th century. It gets off to a good start, with colorful characters and smart dialog. After the intermission, however, it turns into a dreary soap opera that undermines the whole effort. The plot is too thin to sustain an epic length. An hour could easily have been trimmed. The performances are good by the entire cast.

blanche-2 "L'enfants du paradis" is a remarkable film made in Nazi-occupied France, actually done in pieces over several years. Even if it had not been made under such difficult circumstances, it will still stand as a magnificent masterpiece. With a script by the poet Jacques Prevert and direction by Marcel Carne, it stars Arletty and Jean-Louis Barrault as its main characters, Garance and Baptiste Dubureau.The story takes place on the Boulevard de Crime in 1840s France, a street teeming with people and theater of all kinds. A mime, Baptiste (Barrault) becomes obsessed with a street woman, Garance (Arletty), a mysterious creature who becomes the artistic muse of two men, Baptiste and Frederick LeMaitre (Pierre Brasseur). Shyness keeps Baptiste from becoming Garance's lover, and he loses her to LeMaitre and others. Meanwhile, Nathalie (Casares) loves Baptiste and isn't afraid to say so. Garance finally realizes that she is as much in love with Baptiste as he is with her, but now they are both ensconced in other lives. What will they do? "Les enfants du paradis" is a dark film, going from intimate two-person scenes to massive crowd scenes on the boulevard, taking us into the dark alleys of Paris and the after-hours crowd in bars to the theater rabble-rousers, and demonstrating the power of mime in performance. This is a world of hungry actors, crooks, hustlers, casual sex, and great art.Only in France would a woman in her mid-forties be cast as a femme fatale - imagine Hollywood doing that in 1945. The Garbo-ish Arletty manages to be earthy and mysterious as Garance. The actress was not invited to the premiere of this film due to her fall from grace - she had a German officer as a lover during the war. In fact, she was arrested and spent time in a concentration camp, finally being put under house arrest. She did return triumphantly to film and worked until 1967, when blindness from an accident forced her to retire. She died in 1992 at the age of 94.The thin, sensitive looking Jean-Louis Barrault gives an exquisite performance as Baptiste, a role based on the real-life mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who invented the character of Pierrot. So successful was Barrault's pantomime work that it revived interest in the art form in France and made it possible for Marcel Marceau to become hugely popular. Barrault's performance is still studied in mime schools today. A passionate man, Barrault actually hid members of the resistance on the set of "Les enfants du paradis." This film is long, it's talky, but it is fascinating and detailed in every aspect. A no-miss for both film and theater lovers.

sc8031 One of the best films of all time? I'm not a weepy romantic wallflower, but this movie is good stuff.I won't summarize the characters for you, but the 5 or 6 main characters all represent different archetypes of the romantic experience. The acting here is superb. The first appearances by the primary male lead characters, Frederick and Baptiste, are brilliant and hilarious. Baptiste's physical comedy in particular is a riot.The whole film is carried by the acting and dialog. There are a number of violent and sexual moments, but they all happen tastefully off-screen. The writing is so fantastic, replete with hilarious puns, arguments and inspired homages to Shakespearean prose. Seriously, this writing is STRONG. Take notes, fledgling screen-writers! But the tragic elements are emphasized too. The film is full of despicable characters, ironic and painful moments, and wisdom too great for the characters to ever grasp. Even some of the comedic moments have a twist of tragedy to them, with artists who have unwittingly evolved into caricatures of themselves, actors who have become themselves on and off the stage and dreams which are so large they make the person forget to pursue them (if that makes any sense).And how about the layered elements of the tale? The movie opens with curtains to reveal a story about brilliant actors who cannot see the width of the world stage they inhabit outside of their careers. Except it isn't like a post-modernist method of layered presentation because such a method of telling the story is never a focal point. It's simply a nice bonus that leaves you thinking about your own life after the curtains are drawn.Do we love ourselves, other people, or just the feeling of love that other people can evoke from us? Sometimes one is not in love, but only enamored by the other as a muse. I feel like French culture is one that has meditated on these themes profusely and Children of Paradise certainly covers all the bases.