Children of Paradise (1945)

 Marcel Carne's "Children of Paradise"

While watching Marcel Carne's 1945 film "Children of Paradise," I felt that I was truly watching one of the greatest pieces of cinema ever. The problem is that I can't really connect the film to a real-world landscape in any way. For example, in the very same year of the film's release, Roberto Rossellini released his Italian masterpiece "Rome, Open City," which took neo-realism to new, unseen heights as well as being a historical document of contemporary, imminent allegories. There is a direct connection from what was happening in Italy (the Nazi occupation) and the film itself, detailing these issues, anxieties, hopes, and fears. It was a film directly connected to its filmmakers, its country, and audience. This is the same for MOST films in general, as most connect to their time and place, not even necessarily by plot. But a film's tone, perspective, and aesthetic can always allow for audiences to connect directly to the space and time in which it was filmed. However, with "Children of Paradise," I find that excruciatingly difficult. I say this mostly because "Children of Paradise" feels very otherworldly. Sure, the film is firmly set in a time and location (Paris in the 1820s and 1830s), but it feels connected far more to the ethereal than it does to its tactile location, even its location of its real filmmakers (France in 1943 and 1944). After all, one would think that filming a movie while directly being restrained and hindered by the Nazi occupation on France would have some tetherable connection to this palpable reality. Instead, "Children of Paradise" exists in a sort of timelessness, a fabricated reality elevated beyond the real. At the same time, this irreality conveys the real more so than the real does. I know I'm beginning to sound counterintuitive, but the film seems to exemplify art in and of itself. The very frames of the film are curtains into the artistic landscape that tangible reality dare not go. And yet, this reality is where we find ours. The 'performance' of this artistic expression is more real and true than anything a documentary or realist piece could conjure. 

If you take a look at the film, you'll find that Marcel Carne arranges his ideas and images around the theater stage, where most of our characters inhabit. Even the very opening shot of the film are theater curtains that open up to the world of the film thereafter. Carne nods to the viewer that they are watching a production, a performance, and piece of art. All along the way of the story, we are entranced in this practice of making art through the habits and careers of its characters - the professional actor, the pantomime, the gangster author, and our beloved courtesan, whose body is her art. 

The film opens up on the "Boulevard of Crime" during the July Monarchy (1830-1848) in Paris, France. A courtesan named Garance is courted by three different men who all love her in different ways: the actor, mime, and gangster author. As the film progresses, they attempt their pursuit of her, along with their profession. However, they all lose her and gain in notoriety professionally. When she returns as a woman married to a wealthy aristocrat, they all attempt to gain her back, only to lose her once again. 

My attempts at describing the plot will only be futile, as the plot is actually far more complex and intricate that it appears in a summary description. However, regardless of the plot and its ability to pull you into the emotionality and humanist elements of its intricate and passionate characters, the film itself represents a complete opposite form that the films that were going to be coming out of Europe in the post-war landscape. Starting in Italy, the neo-realist movement detailed tangible concerns of its contemporary population with a visual starkness. It was open, on display, and showed the exact world its audiences inhabited. "Children of Paradise," however, much like the poetic realist French films of the 1930s, exhibited the real in a far more poetic way. Poetry itself doesn't express tangibility in thought. Rather, it expresses something beyond recognition of measured and ordinary language. The diction in a William Shakespeare play doesn't mirror the common tongue of the common man, nor does his subjects represent them either. His subjects are oft kings, royalty, noble heroes, and aristocratic teenagers in love with the wrong powerful family. And yet, the verbiage, along with the subject, of a William Shakespeare piece still rings true. "Macbath" scrapes at the greedy and power hungry center of the human soul. "Othello," as tackled in "Children of Paradise," rinses itself in the common familiarity of jealousy and paranoia, despite its protagonist being a king elevated above the commonality of the common man. I'm not saying that the script of "Children of Paradise" written by Jacques Prevert is Shakespearian, nor contains a proetic pose that does not ring true to common speech. Rather, I'm saying the language is weighed and heightened, spoken in a passion of poetry. And Carne's direction acts as though he were filming something magical, as opposed to something ordinary amongst common characters. Poetic realism was coming to an end with the war. The French has mastered it through its wonderful filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, and even Marcel Carne. With the war, poetry in cinema was dying and stark realism was taking its place, perhaps necessarily so. "Children of Paradise" was perhaps the last great grasp at poetic realism and Carne's gorgeous rendition a firm reminder of its power.

The power of poetry is at the heart of "Children of Paradis" and this power unveils itself to you through the sheer existential emotion at stake. As I said before, realism would become the new standard for cinema in the post-war landscape. However, "Children of Paradise" demonstrates how poetic elevation can reveal truths to the human spirit far more transparently than stark realism. In realism, the tangibility of external and tangible truth connect a viewer to the subject and to themselves through the identification of what is on screen. Seeing images that resemble a real document allows a viewer to connect to this subject through its sheer 'reality.' However, with poetic realism, the viewer connects with the subjects through the sheer emotion and passion of its subjects, i.e. the internality of the world it represents, as opposed to the externality found in realism. There is a romance at the heart of poetic realism. And this romance is at the heart of "Children of Paradise." While watching the film, I felt this romance, this passion, this ultimate love and despair of every character. Characters begin as caricatures, only to morph into fleshy human souls with complex and divine countenance. For example, the detestable gangster that one hates and despises at the film's commencement is a character you weep for by its closing moments, despite the character himself remaining unchanged in spirit and action. It wasn't the character or behavior who changed at all. Rather, it was our perception of his humanity. I believe this can only be done to its heightened extent through the internal poetry of artistic expression, rather than through the document-formality of stark, external-driven realism. 

I felt the human spirit of the film through its renditions. I felt moved and in touch with humanity and its tortured soul. Amongst all the plot happenings is a poetic capture of life in and of itself - the love, pain, despair, hope, romance, struggle, etc. It all plays out before you. The play begins, you live, you love, you suffer, and the play ends. It is a reflection of life itself without actually tangibly placing you in life itself. You are watching the human existence as if God himself were looking at it and smiling with satisfaction of having witnessed it in its fullest measure of emotion. 

Because of this, "Children of Paradise" becomes a final statement on the nature of art in the new post-war landscape. The film was made and released before the liberation of Paris at the end of the war and perhaps acts as a final bow to the 'classic' style of cinema the general population had come to expect out of France and on an international level. To me, "Children of Paradise" firmly cements itself as thematically relating to the creation of art and its connections to truth and humanity. Poetry in art expresses humanity far more emotionally than anything else could. The story is not about its observer, but the emotions of the film are. The film has nothing to do with the oppressiveness of the Nazi occupation and its limitations on art. And yet, it does with its sheer, unabashed expression of what art can do and what it is capable of. Art and poetry express the human soul, the human experience, and the nature of love and suffering. In this way, "Children of Paradise" acts as a defiant stance on open expression, as a liberation of speech, as a freedom to be and express oneself.  It is a masterpiece of its time and something we'll surely likely never see again.