Christian-Jacque's previous film to this was Symphonie Fantastique, a period piece about Hector Berlioz and about as far away from this as it's possible to get. The film is visually stunning and it's not difficult to imagine it being influential on Orson Welles should he have happened to see it. Black and White, Light and Shade, that's what it's all about with scenes on a cluttered dockyard and shots through fishing nets recalling Joseph Von Sternberg. Clearly C-J had been influenced by the poetic-realism of the Jacques Prevert/Marcel Carne school and happy endings just aren't on the cards. With the possible exception of Jean Marais (and even he would only find recognition outside France a few years later) the cast are virtually unknown so that the excellence of the ensemble acting is a pleasant surprise. Arguably the highest profile on display is leading lady Simone Renant who worked consistently during the thirties and forties and she it is who becomes involved in the ending which is a neat reverse angle on the finale of Julien Duvivier's Pepe Le Moko; in the earlier film a dying Jean Gabin watched Mireille Balin sail away, a gate separating them; this time around a dying Renant watches Marais ride the train away from her unaware that she has been shot and, yes, there is a barrier between them. This is simply a terrific little known film and is ripe for rediscovery.
Review of Voyage sans espoir
