Port of Shadows ("Quai des Brumes") is one of the preeminent examples of the school of French filmmaking known as poetic realism. It was a landmark film for its time, introducing some of the stylistic features that would later be evident in Hollywood's film noir, beginning in the early forties with the likes of The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and The Glass Key (1942).

Historical Background: The Director: The early part of Marcel Carné's filmmaking career was most defined by his partnership with scriptwriter Jacques Prévert (1900-1977). It's no coincidence that it was also the most successful part of his career. The two men collaborated a total of seven times and the last six of those films are considered an unparalleled string of successes and the apotheosis of poetic realism. They teamed up on Carné's debut as a director, Jenny (1936), but first hit full stride with Bizarre (1937). Then came four great films that formed bookmarks in relation to World War II. Port of Shadows ("Quai des Brumes") (1938) and Daybreak (Le Jour se lève in French) (1939) were made in the closing days before the war. The Germans invaded Poland just a few weeks after the second of those films and World War II was underway. During the occupation, Carné and Prévert made Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942) and Children of Paradise (1945). The release of the latter film coincided with liberation. The last successful collaboration between the two men was on Gates of the Night (1946). Their partnership collapsed after a mid-production cancellation of the film La Fleur de l'Age, which was never completed.

Historical Background: Poetic Realism: Port of Shadows is said to epitomize poetic realism as well as any film. The goal of poetic realism was to distill the essence of situations rather than to merely record them faithfully. The tools for revealing underlying meanings with hyper-authenticity included careful design of mise-en-scene, framing, lighting and shadows, layers of the camera's visual field, camera positions and movements, and, of course, the performances. The sense in which poetic realism was poetic was, in part, the atmosphere. In Port of Shadows, for example, fog is used in all of the outdoor scenes to create a kind of mythic, other worldly atmosphere. The skies are overcast as well and the sets subtly suggest a world of fantasy and tragic destiny. The poetic quality is also evident in the way that basically ordinary and unimportant characters (a deserter, a streetwalker, a petty hoodlum, a drunk) are momentarily given transcendent poetic stature by grand operatic events that briefly grip their lives.

The sense in which poetic realism is realistic is less obvious, but equates, to an extent, with the style of French music popular at the time, called chanson réaliste, of which Edith Piaf was perhaps the foremost exponent. Both chanson réaliste and poetic realism were constructed from dark tales involving down-and-out or sleazy characters, manifesting world-weary romanticism and fatalism, leading to tragic outcomes. The fatalistic element can be seen as a remnant of traditional tragic theater in which a character's fatal flaw leads to his doom (and often that of others in his sphere of influence). Poetic realism is also recognizable as a precursor of film noir, though that term and concept would not fully emerge until the early forties.

The late thirties were a bleak time in Europe, with the rise of fascism and Nazism. The team of Carné and Prévert caught the spirit of their times effectively, with their romantic fatalism, but, in so doing, irritated the French authorities no end. The French government was desperately trying to maintain the illusion that their military forces could withstand an invasion by the Germans and felt that optimism on the part of the French citizenry would be indispensable to the effort. Port of Shadows was so bleak and depressing in its outlook that the French government and military took to saying, "If we've lost the war, blame it on Quai des Brumes." When Daybreak was scheduled for release in 1939, the French censors had reached their limit with the negativism of Carné and Prévert, and suppressed the film altogether. Port of Shadows also ran afoul of the French censors for its then unprecedented reference to illicit sexuality (through a morning-after scene in which there is no evidence of guilt or shame) as well as explicit depiction of a suicide (that scene no longer appears in the film, at least in the Criterion DVD available in America). The censors also punched out another scene depicting a severed head.

The Story: On a foggy night, a truck driver on a lonely stretch of road suddenly encounters a lone soldier, Jean (Jean Gabin), and offers him a lift into the port city of Le Havre. As they near town, Jean suddenly jerks the steering wheel of the truck to prevent it from running into a stray dog. The driver is angry and the two men are close to fisticuffs, but decide, in the end, that a dog isn't worth fighting over. Jean heads off into town with the dog close on his heels.

In town, at a nightclub called "The Little Joker," a couple of punks led my Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) are trying to intimidate an old, bearded man, Zabel (Michel Simon), thinking that he might have information about their friend Maurice, who is missing. Zabel scolds the young men, expressing his disappointment that these boys from good families have turned into hoodlums. Outside the club, the doorman is rousting a drunk named Quart Vittel (Raymond Aimos), as Jean comes walking into town. The drunk tries to buddy up to Jean, who wants nothing to do with him, but when three police officers come walking down the street, Quart intuitively finds Jean a convenient hiding place until the officers have passed by. Quart then directs Jean to a place where he'll be able to bunk down for the night, unnoticed.

That place is a shack and small bar at the end of the road near the docks and shoreline. The proprietor of this rustic establishment is Panama (Edouard Delmont), so named because he wears a top hat that he brought home from a tour of duty in Panama. Panama is a quick judge of men and asks no questions. Soon another patron arrives – a despondent painter, Michel (Robert Le Vigan) who suffers heroically from his own complexities. He struggles as an artist because he always wants to paint what is behind the objects in his painting and because his perspective is morbidly bleak. He says that his only remaining desire in life in to sleep, just once, between two clean white sheets.

Jean is more interested in his own empty stomach that the artist's empty philosophizing. Panama sets him up in the kitchen with a plate of food. While he's eating and sharing some of the bread with the stray dog that has stuck to him like glue, in walks the lithe and lovely Nelly (Michèle Morgan), clearly a woman even if just seventeen. She and Jean talk a bit and the chemistry between the two is quick and obvious. Their tête à tête is interrupted by the sound of gunfire outside. Lucien and his two henchmen have pursued Zabel and the latter has sought safety at Panama's place. Panama has a gun of his own and manages to shoo away Lucien and his thugs by shooting out one of their headlights. In the kitchen, Nelly hears Zabel's voice and asks Jean to help her avoid the man, who, it turns out, is her godfather and guardian. Jean and Nelly agree to meet later on the beach.

Panama sends Zabel packing because he doesn't like the man's face, suspecting that he's not to be trusted. Jean steps out of the kitchen to thank Panama for the free meal and Panama asks if he needs anything else. Jean indicates that he needs a civilian outfit. Michel sizes Jean up, physically and spiritually, and decides that Jean is about his own size and needs a new identity. Michel has one more identity than he wants. After Jean leaves, Michel strips himself bare, leaves his passport and papers, walks into the ocean and swims out to his death.

Later, Jean meets up with Nelly on the beach. Lucien and his pals spot them and Lucien decides he'll question Nelly and force some unwanted kisses on her. Jean, however, is more than a match for three punks. He knocks the only sizable one among the three to the ground with one punch and easily backs the others down. He even slaps Lucien around a bit and warns him to keep out of his way. Lucien, who is a sissy masquerading as a bully, almost breaks into tears. After the hoodlums leave, Jean and Nelly part company, agreeing to meet up later on at Panama's.

At Zabel's shop, Lucien and his punks show up trying to intimidate Zabel once again. Zabel mocks Lucien to an extent that Lucien wants to shoot him, but his cohorts restrain him and drag him away. As they're leaving, one of the punks tells Zabel about his goddaughter spending time with a soldier who slapped Lucien to tears. Nelly comes home and we quickly discover why she's trying to stay away from Zabel. He's got a lecherous interest in her. The arrival of a customer interrupts his advances and the customer is, coincidentally, Jean. He's stopped in to buy a gift for his new girlfriend and wants it engraved "Jean and Nelly." Since there aren't too many Nellys in town, Zabel quickly gathers that this is Nelly's soldier that he's heard about. Nelly's entrance from the back room confirms it. Nelly is sent down to the wine cellar to bring a bottle up for their guest and discovers, there, the cufflinks of the missing Maurice, who she had been dating. She quickly surmises that her godfather is a killer. Back upstairs, she faints, dropping the cufflinks. Zabel sends Nelly to her room to rest and then tries to interest Jean in killing Lucien (in exchange for not revealing his deserter status). Jean refuses in no uncertain terms, pushing Zabel around a bit and into a chair. As Jean is leaving, Nelly catches up with him and they make arrangements to meet that evening at the fair.

Jean returns to Panama's shack and is given Michel's clothes and papers, not realizing the sacrifice that Michel has made. He even takes Michel's paint box to complete the masquerade. He heads to the docks and finds a ship that will be leaving the next day for Venezuela. The ship's doctor (René Génin) is an amateur artist and, believing from the paint box that Jean is an artist as well, strikes up a friendly relationship and offers to put Jean up in his cabin, should he want to travel to South America. Jean goes to meet Nelly at the carnival, expecting to spend his last night in France with her. On the bumper cars, they run into Lucien, who is behaving like a punk again. Lucien knocks off Jean's hat, before recognizing who he is, and is terrified when he sees that it's Jean. Jean catches up with him and bitch slaps him in front of everyone, causing Lucien's girlfriend to laugh heartily.

Jean and Nelly spend another night together in a hotel. When the paper is delivered in the morning, the headlines report that pieces of Maurice's body have washed up on shore, along with a soldier's uniform. Jean is likely to be accused of the crime and it's more urgent than ever that he get out of the country. After fond farewells with Nelly, he boards his ship, ties his dog to a pole in the cabin, and mulls over the conflict he's feeling between his own need to get out of the country and the danger that Nelly is likely to be in from her godfather.

SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP TO THEMES TO AVOID.

Jean impulsively races down the gangplank to return to Nelly. He arrives at Zabel's shop just as the old coot is trying to force himself on Nelly, with loud music to mask any screams for help she might attempt. "It's horrible," he says to her, "to love like Romeo when you look like Bluebeard." When Zabel comes at Jean with a knife, Jean beats him to death with a brick. Jean is about to rush back to the ship, but as he exits the shop, the twice-humiliated Lucien is waiting outside and guns him down. As he lies dying, Nelly plants a final kiss on his lips. When she realizes he has slipped away, she screams and her scream merges with the blast of the ship's stack, as it is about to depart. Back in the doctor's quarters on the ship, we see Jean's suitcase and Michel's paint box side by side. Jean's stray dog, still tied up in the cabin, breaks loose and races down the gangplank. We see a brief surreal image of Jean nestled comfortably between two pristine white sheets in a double bed. The dog races off down the road and disappears into the mist, symbolically representing the flight of Jean's soul.

Themes: Thematically, the two key characters in the film are Jean, played by Gabin, and Panama, played by Edouard Delmont. Jean represents a new variable introduced into a static environment existing in a delicately balanced equilibrium. Jean represents destiny or fate or a kind of renegade spirit who has arrived in Le Havre to expose all of the devilish secrets of the residents. Everyone from the murderer to the drunk, and from the streetwalker to the suicidal artist and the two-bit hoodlum will have exposed the dark secrets hidden beneath their personas. Each of their misguided agendas will be brought to a pivotal climax. Jean comes to town with his own secrets, as well. Though his innermost desire is to maintain as low a profile as possible, he'll be the major-domo who ushers in the march of truth that mercilessly crushes each character's deceits.

Panama, on the other hand, represents unconditional acceptance of each person's reality, just as it is. He asks no questions, demands no explanations, but intuitively sizes up each character for what and who he or she is. Panama recognizes Jean as a basically good man and is prepared to help him out, no questions asked. He's just as quick to recognize that Zabel has an evil quality about him and sends him packing. No questions asked in that instance, either. Panama's bar at the end of the peninsula is reminiscent of the famous bar at a remote outpost in the original Star Wars film, where seedy characters congregate and (usually) coexist by keeping to themselves and asking no questions. Panama's bar is the status quo of life, into which strides Jean as the inexorable march of destiny.

Production Values: The script was full of novelty for its day, but those novelties have lost some of their luster from repetition in so many later films. The characters are now familiar types and several of the plot developments are predictable (others are not). The mystery element is weak, since the identity of the killer is evident fairly early on. Overall, the substance of the film is not so strong as its style. The strongest aspect of the script is the tightly structured ending, which is utterly spellbinding and magnificent. It is packed with symbolism that one can play with for hours after the film is over. Prévert's dialog is witty and believable, as always.

What's most impressive about this film is the visual atmosphere. The docks and roadways shrouded in fog, the existential ambiance of the streets, the stark interior at Panama's shack, and the colorful bar with its hint of danger create a magical aura. The black-and-white images are striking to look at and well composed. Carné was a master of framing his characters in windows and doorways and in otherwise using the visual construction to add depth to character relationships. Not least among the joys of this film is a superb soundtrack. It is the work of composer Maurice Jaubert, who had previously provided scores for three other films by Carné, but who was killed during the first days of World War II. His music for this film, mostly in minor keys, is rife with foreboding and fatefulness.

Jean Gabin is his usual magnificent self as Jean, radiating all of the confident insouciance that only he and a handful of other male actors can display. Some of Gabin's other films include Pépé le Moko (1937), Grand Illusion (1937), La Bête Humaine (1938), Le Jour se lève (1939), and French Cancan (1955). Michèle Morgan was just eighteen when this film was made and a radiantly beautiful creature. In the morning-after scene, her eyes sparkle with feline intensity. Morgan later appeared in such films as Passage to Marseille (1944) and The Fallen Idol (1948). Carné had his pick of the litter of French character actors for the supporting roles. Michel Simon shines, as always, as the sinister Zabel, though he was better known for his comedic roles in such films as Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) and L’Atalante (1934). Edouard Delmont gives a fine performance as Panama. His previous work included Marius (1931), which I will be reviewing soon. I thought the best performance in the film, after the two leads, belonged to Robert Le Vigan, as the painter. Pierre Brassuer, who played the contemptible Lucien, later worked for Carné in Children of Paradise (1945).

Bottom-Line: Criterion has provided a reasonably crisp digital transfer with its usual cleanup of debris. Some frames look grittier than others, probably because of unevenness in the artificial smog that was used to generate atmosphere. The extras on the DVD are minimal, including only a gallery of stills and the French trailer for the film. The booklet, however, has a couple of high quality essays, including one featuring excerpts relating to the film, taken from Carné's autobiography.

Some viewers will find Carné's brand of romantic fatalism more depressing than entertaining. This film leaves you with neither a happy ending nor a sense of justice – nor is it intended to. Carné and Prévert made films for viewers wanting a mature alternative to Hollywood's saccharine and chaste fare of the thirties and forties. This film moves into second place for me among the Carné films that I've seen, behind Children of Paradise. I'd like to give it 4.5 stars, which would put it in its appropriate position, but lacking that option, I'll grade it at four, in recognition of the likelihood that some viewers won't take to poetic realism as much as I do. Port of Shadows is in French with English subtitles and has a running time of 90 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older