Au-delà des grilles / La mura di Malapaga / The Walls of Malapaga

René Clément: Au-delà des grilles / La mura di Malapaga / The Walls of Malapaga (FR/IT 1948) with Jean Gabin (Pierre Arrignon) and Isa Miranda (Marta Manfredini).

René Clément: Au-delà des grilles / La mura di Malapaga / The Walls of Malapaga (FR/IT 1948) with Jean Gabin (Pierre Arrignon) and Isa Miranda (Marta Manfredini).

Mies tuli mereltä / Farlig hamn.
    Director: René Clément. Year: 1948. Country: Francia-Italia. Scen.: Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Alfredo Guarini (adattamento e dialoghi francesi: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost). F.: Louis Page. M.: Mario Serandrei. Scgf.: Piero Filippone, Luigi Gervasi. Mus.: Roman Vlad.
    Int.: Jean Gabin (Pierre Arrignon), Isa Miranda (Marta Manfredini), Vera Talchi (Cecchina Manfredini), Andrea Checchi (Joseph Manfredini), Robert Dalban (il marinaio della ‘Flora’), Ave Ninchi (Maria), Carlo Tamberlani (il commissario), Checco Rissone (il falsario), Renato Malavasi (il dentista).
    Prod.: Alfredo Guarini per Francinex, Italia Produzione. 35 mm. D.: 104’. Bn.
    Helsinki premiere: 17 March 1950 Bio Rex, distributed by Adams Filmi.
    Version française.
    Copy from Cinémathèque Luxembourg. By courtesy of Compass Film.
    Jean Gabin, the Man with Blue Eyes.
    Viewed at Cinema Arlecchino, Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato, with e-subtitles in Italian and English by Sub-Ti Londra, 25 June 2019.

Edouard Waintrop (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2019): "Pierre, a Frenchman on the run, leaves a cargo ship in Genoa with horrific toothache. He meets Cecchina, a little girl, and then Marta, her mother, a waitress with whom he tryes to forget his being a criminal and a fugitive from the law."

"Au-delà des grilles is an unjustly forgotten film by René Clément, an underestimated director. A Franco-Italian co-production, it combines the best qualities of the two national film cultures of its era. It offers a neorealist depiction of Genoa seen through Jean Gabin’s eyes as he strolls through the streets, something which is without doubt the result of working with Italian screenwriters Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Alfredo Guarini. But this neorealist influence was evident in Clément’s debut, Bataille du rail (Battle of the Rails)."

"The film also shows the influence of a sometimes tart French poetic-realist style, through its dialogue written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost. The result is attractively sinister, marked by Isa Miranda’s luminous performance and Gabin’s frailty. The latter is particularly effective as an exhausted exile who glimpses briefly the possibility of a second chance. Clément had just produced a string of success including Le Père tranquille and Les Maudits (The Damned). Here he establishes an efficient contrast between the streets of an Italian town and the inhabitants of a French cargo ship; between shopkeepers and sailors; between policemen and children; between a man who has lost everything and a woman who has run out of hope."

"Au-delà des grilles was one of Gabin’s few French hits in the immediate post-war years. Two million people paid to see the film. Isa Miranda won the Best Actress prize at Cannes in 1949 and Clément the prize for Best Director. The picture went on to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1951." Edouard Waintrop

AA: Jean Gabin comes back after the war, a shadow of his former self, his hair turned grey.

For the first time I saw Au-delà des grilles, which I have been looking forward to see since I read André Bazin's essay "Jean Gabin et son destin".

Immediately it's fascinating to observe the meeting of 1930s French poetic realism with 1940s Italian neorealism. The setting is the ruined harbour city of Genova, portrayed in full neorealist mode, documenting the period of reconstruction after the ravages of war.

The merger was prepared as a collaboration of Italian master screenwriters Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Alfred Guarini with the French aces Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost. 

On screen the union is personified in the mythic encounter of Jean Gabin and Isa Miranda. Both had been around. Both had had screen breakthroughs in the early 1930s, Gabin in Cœur de Lilas (Litvak), Miranda in La signora di tutti (Ophuls).

One last time Gabin plays a variation of the character we know from his films of the 1930s with Julien Duvivier and Marcel Carné. Gabin has turned old, his hair now shocking white. Pierre is helped at first by little Cecchina. She turns jealous when Pierre is attracted to her mother Marta.

Pierre is a stowaway, a refugee, a man on the run. But there is no way out. Au-delà des grilles is not a film noir but it is contemporary to film noir, a different outgrowth from some of their shared roots. Pierre has committed a crime which cannot be redeemed. Isa Miranda's character is not a femme fatale, on the contrary. She is an inspiration of beauty, love, tenderness, decency and humanity. But for Pierre it is already too late.

The cinematography by Louis Page is brilliant with impressive tracking shots and audacious camera angles. The score by Roman Vlad is exciting with fatalistic overtures, romantic motifs, lively serenades, engrossing epic passages, and dance-music quintets.

An enjoyable 35 mm experience from a print from Luxembourg. At times the visual quality is on the soft side.