Stars: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Renoir, Maria Casares, Louis Salon, Pierre Brasseur

Director: Marcel Carne

Summary: The lives and dreams of a small group of actors set in 19th Century Paris where four men compete for the attentions of a beautiful courtesan. Newly restored version.

Filmed during the German occupation, this French milestone centers around the theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan and the four men who love her. Voted the "Best French Film in History" by the French Film Academy in 1990. Academy Award Nominations: Best Original Screenplay.

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A film which regularly charts high in critics' polls of the best films of all time, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert's masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradisis as solid a landmark in French film history as the Eiffel Tower is on the Parisian landscape. And at 187 minutes running time, it's a massy edifice indeed, built from a rambunctious cast of characters--ranging from pickpockets and prostitutes to aristocrats and actors--whose lives intersect around the Theatre des Funambules, a popular Parisian theatre on the Boulevard du Crime, during the 1840s. (The title refers to the poor who can only afford seats in the upper galleries of the theatre.)

The heart of the plot is a love story between mime artiste Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and streetwalker Garance (the magnificent, sand-paper-voiced Arletty). When Garance is falsely accused of pickpocketing, Baptiste provides a mimed alibi for her to the police (one of the film's most famous set pieces). The rose she later throws him in gratitude sets off a romantic obsession, one of several that structure the film, as do love triangles, duels, and tortured confessions of feeling.

Thematically, Les Enfant du Paradisgnaws over typically French cinematic preoccupations: illusion and reality, the nature of performance, the indomitable spirit of the proletariat and so on, all made the more charged and poignant when you know the film was shot during the Nazi occupation. (One actor, Robert Le Vigan, was reportedly a Nazi collaborator and disappeared during the filming under mysterious circumstances and so had to be replaced by Pierre Renoir.) --Leslie Felperin

Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Trailer
Year:	1945
Release Date:	September 18, 2000
Runtime:	181 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	2 N D V D 3008
Keywords:	Children, Subtitled, Version, General, Paradise, French, Enfants, Paradis, Romantic, Restored, Drama, Les, Period, Du, Newly
Genre:	Drama