In France, during the Nazi occupation of World War II, filmmakers faced the challenge of creating entertainment that might still carry with it the French perspective of the enemy occupation while still making it past Nazi censors who enforced considerably harsher penalties than the MPAA (like death, for example). This posed a challenge for filmmakers like Marcel Carné who desired to comment on the deplorable situation through his work without being penalized for political messaging. His solution: Les Visiteurs du Soir (or The Devil’s Envoys), a story set in the time of kings and traveling minstrels imbued with heavy themes of an evil working from within to destroy youth, love, and order. The classic film receives the Criterion Collection Blu-ray restoration treatment here, but it’s worth noting that the print from which it’s derived is not without its share of quality issues, but the bewitching beauty of Arletty, the innocence of Marie Dea, and the stoic face of Alain Cuny make that easy to ignore.
Two traveling minstrels happen upon a castle in the midst of a celebration over the impending nuptials of Anne (Dea) and her fiancé, the cold and distant baron Renaud (Marcel Herrand). To ingratiate themselves to their hosts, the minstrels introduce themselves as Dominique (Arletty) and Gilles (Cuny) and proceed to play a song that enchants the audience and generally wins over the court. With their new found popularity, Dominique and Gilles proceed to divide and conquer; the seduce the would-be married couple and through a great many seductive lines, convince both the baron and Anne that they’d be happier on the arm of Dominique and Gilles, respectively.
Just when the dastardly plan seems to be on the verge of completion with Dominique drawing Anne’s father and Renaud to blows over her affections, Gilles has a change of heart and genuinely falls in love with Anne instead of simply stringing her along. With that, the devil (Jules Berry) appears to course correct his devious plot, only to discover that Gilles and Anne have kindled something real in their short time together. They must defy the devil and risk his wrath if they’re to have any hope of coming out at the end with their love intact.
Exactly what comparisons you choose to draw between the film’s story and the circumstances of Nazi-occupied France in 1942 are up to you, but there are plenty of choices. Do the devil’s agents represent the splintering of France’s political front which allowed the German’s to find the necessary weaknesses to invade in the first place? Does the sadistic rule of the devil and his ultimate fate for the lovers represent an overarching and vague representation of the evil that was bearing down on France at the time? Or is it a combination of these and other elements simply hinting at the infiltration of evil in to a peaceful and happy place and its repulsion by the purity it encounters there? We have no definitive answers here, but the clever dialogue and the performances (especially by Arletty) make it an entertaining story through and through.
Perhaps the most pressing issues in this particular Criterion release is the print of the film which is far from perfect but still watchable. The quality does seem to improve in the second half, but up until then there are a few very noticeable distortions and artifacts that betray some poor keeping of the original prints. It’s more reflective of the idea that the film was created in an era of conflict and before the preservation of classic films was really a priority for most studios than it is of Criterion Collection’s general record for cleaning up films. It’s unfortunate that such a historically interesting film can’t be perfect in quality all the way through, but at least it’s still watchable in its entirety.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Considering its age, it’s not hard to understand that this release only has a single digital extra on the disc: a documentary on the film’s creation. Beyond that, the only extra is the set’s booklet insert featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson on the challenge and risks of creating a film during the Nazi occupation of France.
"Les Visiteurs du Soir (The Criterion Collection)" is on sale September 18, 2012 and is not rated. Drama, Fantasy, Romance. Directed by Marcel Carne. Written by Jacques Prévert, Pierre Laroche. Starring Arletty, Marcel Herrand, Marie Dea, Alain Cuny, Jules Berry.
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