Le jour se lève
Tags: tragedy, melodrama, murder, sadist, flashback

Plot synopsis:
Foundry worker François (Jean Gabin) shoots and kills Valentin (Jules Berry). François then locks himself in his apartment. He is soon besieged by the police, who fail in an attempt to shoot their way into the room. As they regroup to decide how to apprehend him, François begins to reminisce on how he came to be in this predicament.
Several months earlier, he had begun to date Françoise (Jacqueline Laurent), a florist's assistant. They bond over the similarities in their names and the fact that they both were orphans. François fell in love with her and hoped to marry her, but she turned him down in order to have a relationship with the older Valentin, a narcissistic, manipulative dog trainer. Embittered, François began a relationship with Clara (Arletty), Valentin's former assistant in his dog show. Over the next few weeks, Clara fell in love with François, but he preferred to have only a casual relationship with her; she knew it was because he had continued to see Françoise, with whom he was still in love. One day, Valentin told François that he was in fact Françoise's father; she was the product of a youthful dalliance. Later that afternoon, François asked Françoise if Valentin was telling the truth. She denied it, saying that Valentin habitually made up stories. But she also confessed that she was falling in love with François and wanted to be with him.
Valentin confronted François in his apartment. He admitted to having lied about being Françoise's father and brandished a gun with which he had intended to shoot François. Instead, he taunted François with allusions to his sexual encounters with Françoise. Enraged, François picked up the gun and shot Valentin.
Alone in his room and out of cigarettes, François realized he had no hope of escape. He does not know that Françoise, delirious with guilt, was now being tended to by Clara. The police decide to throw tear gas into François's room in an attempt to subdue him. But just before they do, François commits suicide by shooting himself in the heart.

Review: Marcel Carné movies often were visually a real pleasure to watch and this movie forms no exception on this.It's also a movie that quite heavily relies on its actors to tell its story and to deliver its great dialog, that got specially written by poet scenarist and songwriter Jacques Prévert.
There is something so lyrical about the tale of the doomed François portrayed by the great Jean Gabin that even in its hardest luck moments you feel you are watching poetry in motion.In addition, Le Jour se Leve is a character study with all the contradictions that tend to go with pained souls like François' - except that there is a further depth that renders the film quite universal, a depth made of little moments in human relationships and the flaws that gently emerge but only renders the humans involved more endearing.Still, all that glitters is not gold: the apparently pure Françoise has actually been bedded by M.
Valentin (Berry); and the police are more interested in getting their man than in saving him.The direction is precise and inspired, resorting to the then much used flashback technique but never allowing it to dominate the film.The photography - well, it is gorgeous and it gives the film its expressionistic ambiance.
Need one say more?The ending can be predicted from the moment François kills a visitor in his apartment but that aside it is a film full of cinematographic treasures, acting to gape at, and a quality of direction that is seldom seen these days.
the film opens with Jean Gabin character Francois - a factory worker- killing a dog trainer named Valentin who we find out (as the story unravels itself) was "involved" with his girl.
Francois then barricades himself from the police, and the reason for the death of Valentin is told in simple sets of flashbacks that Gabin remembers between cigarettes as he decides what his next move will be.
The story then proceeds in flashback.Marcel Carné directs this famous French film starring Jean Gabin.
A tough guy who's actually a good guy.Now, a soft-hearted tough guy who's surrounded by police -- that could also describe Bogart's breakthrough film, "High Sierra", from 1941, and perhaps there is some superficial similarity.However, this story is mostly a tale of love affairs and working class life -- that's really where its interest lies.
From the very beginning,the hero,a good guy (Gabin) is doomed,his fate is already sealed,because the tragedy has already happened .That's why the movie is a long flashback.The memories are brought back on the screen with an astounding virtuosity by some elements of the set (the teddy bear for instance).Only three main characters outside that of Gabin,the evil one (Berry who was to play the devil in "les visiteurs du soir "1942),the lucid one (Arletty) and the ambiguous one (Jacqueline Laurent).The latter providesthe only flaw of the movie:Laurent acts Françoise as the innocent pure girl,however Carné leaves no doubt about her relations with Berry.
Ideas of freedom, entrapment, isolation and realism wound into a great film which is carried by Gabin from the opening scene of the murder, through flashbacks he has remembered to the amazingly brutal final shot.
The earlier French film was made just as the war was about to start, and the man (Gabin) is suffering from a more universal problem of being a working class man putting in long hours, cheerfully, with little hope for a future for himself.
This French film is a great film from 1939 starring Jean Gabin, (Francois) the French Humphrey Bogart who is a factory worker and meets up with a sweet innocent young girl named also Francoise,(Jacqueline Laurent) who sees Francois working in the factory and has a hand full of flowers to deliver.
The story gets quite involved with Arletty,(Clara) another gal and there are many flashbacks which was rather new for film goers in 1939.
Finally, nowlang ("A French Masterpiece about the Tragedy of a Simple Man's Life", nowlang (lancelot1953@msn.com) from Small Town, New England, USA, 12 September 2006) adds interesting insight.***"Le jour se lève (Daybreak; 1939, Marcel Carné, France) is another superlative film from Carné.
With the arrival of the Second World War looming, the participants involved in this project still manage to leave behind a story filled with understanding about the human condition.The film is very brave, as it is not hard to argue that "Daybreak" is a veiled protest against the increasingly repressive government.
(An example of how Valentine torments François is by repeatedly calling him "simple." BTW, "Daybreak" sure has a lot more awareness about the plight of animals than does the "Wizard of Oz," also made in 1939.)It is a trademark of the collaboration between Carné (direction) and Jacques Prévert's (dialog) that a sense of balance is felt with the entire cast.
The film stars Jean Gabin, Arletty, Jules Berry and Jacqueline Laurent.It's not difficult to see why the Vichy government during World War Two hated this film and had it censored.
Francois has no escape from his building when he is surrounded but he can escape into his mind and as we see at the end he can decide his own fate.The film begins inside a French apartment building.
This film was one of the first to use flashbacks and the film explains this at the beginning, this was done so audiences at the time would understand what was going on.Francois falls in love with the beautiful and gentle Francoise (Jacqueline Laurent).
All that changes when Francoise falls in love with charming dog trainer Valentin(Jules Berry).
Valentin's assistant and lover Clara (Arletty)begins a relationship with Francois to get back at Valentin but soon realises that she is nothing to either man.Gabin gives a strong lead performance, he makes Francois tough and vulnerable at the same time.
Arletty is excellent as the frank and sexy woman who finds she is not wanted by either of the men she loves.The relationship between Francois, Francoise and Clara is interesting because both women represent (in my opinion)the two different types of love.
And the recurring apparitions of the blind man (a cliché feature introduced with second-degree humour) tell us truth is not what we see.Characters also are antagonised: François (simple, frank, honest) versus Valentin (intelligent, manipulative, sleazy); Françoise (young, shy, apparently chaste) versus Clara (experienced, outspoken, flirty).
François is a strong character but denied a proper existence: he dresses like a monster without a body and a face in the factory; he is dominated by Valentin's rhetoric; he lives isolated at the top of the town's tallest building; the police do not negotiate with him, they simply shoot; he shouts at the end, in a memorable monologue, "There is no François any more!"As a result, the movie manages to be both symbolic and realistic: working conditions, living conditions, social context just before WWII, close shots on important details (brooch, gun, burning cigarette).
The three main actors (Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, Arletty) are among the greatest ever in French cinema and it is their only common appearance.
Notably, it is the only movie featuring all-famous Gabin and Berry together, which makes the contrast between their styles even more striking.Dialogues by Jacques Prévert (a major French poet) are simple, powerful and somewhat poetic.
In the late '30s and early '40s, the films of Marcel Carné gave eloquent voice to a mood of fatalistic, romantic pessimism After the war, however, his career was a sad shadow of its former self Central to Carné and Prévert's conception of doomed love was Jean Gabin's proletarian antihero, trapped in darkened rooms and foggy streets while awaiting retribution for crimes he barely knew he might commit: in "Quai des Brumes," Gabin's deserter comes violently up against local gangsters in a battle over the girl with whom he has fallen suddenly, passionately in love; in "Le jour se Léve," surrounded by police but unable to contemplate surrender, he recalls the events leading to his shooting of a girlfriend's seducer Widely described as poetic realism, Carné's style is in fact anything but realist; the squalor, shadows, and smoky bars all externalize the hero's melancholy resignation to an unjust Destiny Without Carné's expert control of atmosphere, the effect might seem merely picturesque, for rarely have solitude, alienation and death been imbued with such elegance and beauty.
After talking to a number of fellow IMDbers about French cinema during The Occupation of France in WWII,I decided to watch 5 films which would show the effect that the beginning of the invasion in France,the Occupation itself, and the ending of the Occupation had on French cinema.Whilst struggling to find a title that could act as a starting point,I picked up an old dusty copy of a UK film mag called Empire,and I spotted a DVD review for a 1939 French Film Noir which had been banned by the Vichy gov, (which also cut some scenes from the film,that thankfully survive)due to it being "demoralizing" which led to me getting ready to see the sun go up.The plot:Walking up the stairs of a 5-story guest-house,a blind man stumbles upon the dead body of M.
Surrounding the guest-house,the police attempt to interview all of the residence of the building,but find that one room is locked.Hearing the cops knock, François starts shooting at the door,and telling the police to leave him alone.As the police start making plans to arrest the killer, François begins to think about the events that led him here.A few weeks earlier:Whilst working at a foundry factory, François meets a floral shop worker called Françoise.Spending time with Françoise, François finds himself falling for her,but feels that Françoise is holding something back from him.Secretly following Françoise one night, François discovers her attending a magic show being performed by Clara & M.
Rumbaing behind the stark background of the opening credits,the score by Maurice Jaubert creates a superb undercurrent mood for the title,as Jaubert keeps the score light & breezy during François's blossoming romance,which transforms into a bellowing shriek,as François sinks into a Film Noir dead end.Made just before the country fell to Hitler,the screenplay by Jacques Viot and Jacques Prévert brilliantly displays the impending darkness that France was about to enter,as the writers show the police to be faceless figures who attempt to "gas" François out of the building,and stop anyone from criticising the government.Along with the ruthless shots at the police and government,the writers smartly take a Film Noir route to reveal the unease that France was experiencing,as François and Valentin spy/listen in on those nearest to them,whilst the Film Noir loner François becomes a hero to the crowds standing outside the guest-house,as François yells that he wants to be left alone in his flat,where he can lock his door to the despair taking place outside.Showing Valentin's stairway to death with a hard stare which makes the viewer feel every thud that his dying body makes on the steps,director Marcel Carné unleashes a chilling Film Noir atmosphere,as long,winding shots around the guest-house,and tightly coiled whip-pans in François flat show the doom-laden mind-set that François has entered.
Delicately using flashbacks, Carné creates a contrasting feel to the bleak Film Noir world that François is now locked in,by giving the scenes with Clara & Françoise a stark,shining lightness which represents the relax mood that François feels around them,which slowly transforms into a brittle darkness,as Valentin starts attempting to wipe François from his two dream girls.Sharing a mutual desire for François's love,the gorgeous Arletty (who destroyed her career by having an affair with a high-ranking Nazi,and spending most of the Occupation going to fancy dinners held by the Nazis) and Jacqueline Laurent (who in a banned scene appears topless!) each give beautiful performances as Françoise and Clara,with Laurent showing a genuine sweetness in Françoise's desire for her past with Valentin to be left in the dark mists of time,whilst Arletty lights up the screen as striking Femme Fatale Clara,whose mask of acceptance over François fight for his "true love" Françoise breaks,as Clara finds herself being pushed to the wilderness by Valentin & François.With Carné sealing his fate by filling him with bullets in the tense opening, Jules Berry gives a wonderful performance as Valentin,thanks to Berry turning Valentin's charm into sharp manipulation ,as Valentin finds François trying to take all that is his.Sealed in his prison cell/flat, Jean Gabin gives an explosive performance as François,with Gabin hitting a light touch with an expert eye in François's blossoming romance with Françoise,which is haunted by the bleak, burning rage that François's fate is now trapped in,as François looks out of the window in his flat,for hope that daybreak will appear from the darkness..
As the movie progresses you can see potential motives develop, but it is not until the actual murder takes place that the mystery is resolved.The appeal of this film for me was in trying to understand the four main characters: François, a blue-collar worker who loves Françoise; M.
This is where a novel may be superior to a movie - a novel could tell us just what François was thinking in his time of being holed up in his room.Françoise is played with seeming innocent sweetness by Jacqueline Laurent, but her character is also hard to figure.
But looking at it objectively, the story not only plods along but fails to pay off.The film begins with Francois, a factory worker, who has barricaded himself in his rooming house after shooting a man.
The rest of the film involves flashbacks which explain how the situation arose as well as flash forwards to the present, with Francois holed up in his apartment as the police take various actions to try and get him out.It seems that Francois has fallen for a young waif, a floral shop worker by the name of Francoise and courts her assiduously.
Francois follows Francoise to a nightclub where Valentin, an older man, is performing a dog training act.
Meanwhile, Francois runs into Clara (played by Arletty who was blacklisted for awhile in the French film industry after having an affair with a German Officer during the Occupation in World War II).
But Clara's screen time is limited and seems to be the odd woman out in the drama.Le Jour is certainly well-acted and Jean Gabin is particularly good as the smooth-talking Lothario who seduces both women.
It's because of this that for a 1939 film that Le Jour Se Lève excels as a film--unlike the traditional Warner "baddies", the lead, Jean Gabin is neither good nor bad--and his story of how a normal guy can feel forced to kill that makes this film stand out from the crowd.The film begins with a murder and within moments you know that Gabin shot the victim--there is no mystery about this at all.
Jean Gabin was an amazing actor and while I didn't always like all of his films, I definitely admire his casual acting style.
This is a truly great movie - films like this have everything to do with why I fell in love with the idea of living in France.
An honest plain-speaking working man, Francois, is in love with a fresh-faced young Francoise, but she begins hanging around with an older man burdened with a diabolically sinister face, Valentin.
You might watch it once to get the overall picture, then a second time to really appreciate the existential poetry of Jacques Prévert's script, which operates like the raw and penetrating lyrics of a tragicomic symphony speaking the deepest truths about life and rejection, and you can watch it a third time, to appreciate the fiery and haunting performance of Jean Gabin as François, a simple foundry worker becoming despite himself the immediate instrument then the collateral victim of an unexpected killing.And unexpected is the word since its from gunshots that the film opens, a murder just happens off-screen, we only see someone getting off the apartment, his hand on his belly and then tumbling down the stairs until landing on the feet of a blind resident, of all the witnesses.
Time is all he's got and it works like the countdown of a ticking bomb.Not only Gabin but Arletty and Jules Berry are many reasons to appreciate the film, but it is Gabin who steals every scene, Gabin as the subject and the object, he's the one who starts the plot by killing, and enriches our experience by telling us why he did.
It is a tense moment for Francois, a quiet man, otherwise.The story of Francois involvement with the beautiful Francoise, a young woman who grew up like him in an orphanage, brings them together for they feel the need for one another.
It is indeed a complex story in many levels, but Carne delivers an intense drama that keeps his audience glued to what is happening on the screen.Jean Gabin, at the height of his film career made a perfect Francois.
The great Arletty appears as Clara, the woman who loving Francois, stays out of his way since she realizes she cannot have him.
I don't know, but I feel it would have been a much better catalyst for François shooting Valentin than the somewhat unconvincing showdown in the final film.
And François, he also do it with Clara, but I don't know, its different, the man is in love and suffering.
Basically factory worker François (Jean Gabin) has shot and killed M.
Valentin (Jules Berry), and following this he has locked himself in his guest house room on the top floor of the building with many flights of stairs, the police soon arrive to arrest him, they fail to shoot their way into the room as François has barricaded the door.
In a series of flashbacks, occasionally returning to the present to see his attempts to avoid being caught, it is revealed François had been having a relationship with both naive floral shop worker Françoise (Jacqueline Laurent) and more experienced performing assistant Clara (Arletty), who until meeting him was working with Valentin for his performing dog act.