Cheap Children of Paradise - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault) (Marcel Carné) Price

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Customer Reviews of Children of Paradise - Criterion Collection

A Masterpiece
This film is a glittering gem from the early days of motion pictures. Shot in B&W in Paris when the City of Light was under German Occupation during WWII, it tells the story of a French mime and the wrenching love dramas he gets caught up in between his sublime performances. But the film is so much more than that- its a microcosm of mid nineteenth-century Paris complete with costume, sets and an acurate depiction of Parisian society at the time. In this respect it boarders on epic. Barrault's ultimate rejection hits like sharp spike due to the repercussions it has on himself and others around him. The high society of Paris has a coolness which stems from experience which Barrault comes cavorting into like a reckless child- and how the glass shatters. The acting is superb and the smoothness of the direction and film style is stunning. Its a long film- I think over three hours, and it is spoken in French with English subtitles. But it is a timeless and majestic works by the early French director Marcel Carne. Its amazing that he made this film inconspicuously to to avoid run-ins with the German troops who constantly encrouched upon his film studio. Today many very bad films are made in multi-million dollar studios. Children of Paradise goes to show how real genius shines through.

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A few more words and some related trivia
I agree with the assessment that Les Enfants du Paradis is one of the greatest films of all time. To really appreciate it, one must view it repeatedly. (I believe I've watched it 50 times with ever-increasing admiration!) Only then can the subtleties of the integration of cinematography, acting, dialogue, choreography, and musical score be apprehended. The restoration is fantastic and the English subtitles are very good, though it's better to understand French.

Viewers may also be interested to know that three of the four lovers of Garance (Frederick LeMaitre, the actor; Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Debureau, the mime; and Pierre Francois Lacenaire, the criminal) as well as the Funambules theatre and certain of the events in the storyline, are based upon historical fact. The character Garance is more archetypal--love in the eye of each beholder.

Also, both of the male leads, Jean-Louis Barrault (Baptiste) and Pierre Brasseur (Frederick), strongly identified with the historical personages they were playing--so much so that they admitted they felt they were living rather than acting their roles.

For the curious, Jill Forbes' book, Les Enfants du Paradis (published by BFI Classics and available through Amazon), provides a great deal of fascinating information about the making and meanings of this film.

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**
I rented this after seeing Marlon Brando's comment that it is "maybe the best picture ever made." But I didn't like it, and I think perhaps if I'd seen it in its own time, I may have liked it, but it's terribly dated. Not that I would have liked it even so, but, what is sure, I couldn't wait for it to end.