The version I watched is the one released in 2004 on Criterion. This comes with a 30-page booklet with an essay by Luc Sante and an excerpt from Marcel Carne's autobiography. The DVD has a very clear picture and crisp sound. I found the story quite interesting and was impressed by each the actors. There is one scene which makes use of classical music during a moment of violence. It made me think of a movie made much later, Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. PORT OF SHADOWS is about degrees of violence. The adolescent thugs who terrorize the little port city of Le Havre have no idea of what is hidden in the lives of the two protagonists: A soldier who has deserted the army after going through something unspeakable in Tonkin and the urbane middle-aged man who has had enough of losing. I think the inevitability of the events in this movie bothers many people who have reviewed it on this database. It doesn't bother me.
Review of Port of Shadows
