Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis), 1945
Category: Best Movies, Drama, Romance
A True Masterpiece! A film which regularly charts top in critics’ polls of the best films of all time, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert’s masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis is as solid a landmark in French film history as the Eiffel Tower is on the Parisian landscape. And at 187 minutes running time, it’s a edifice indeed, built from a rambunctious cast of characters–ranging from pickpockets and prostitutes to aristocrats and actors–whose lives intersect around the Theatre des Funambules, a popular Parisian theater on the Boulevard du Crime, during the 1840s. (The title refers to the poor who can only afford seats in the upper galleries of the theater.) The heart of the plot is a love story between mime artiste Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and streetwalker Garance (the magnificent, sand-paper-voiced Arletty). When Garance is falsely accused of pickpocketing, Baptiste provides a mimed alibi for her to the police (one of the film’s most famous set pieces). The rose she later throws him in gratitude sets off a romantic obsession, one of several that structure the film, as do love triangles, duels, and tortured confessions of feeling.
IMDB Rating : 8.0/10
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