Vivid and brooding, a Euro-noir, with a cold, stunning Signoret...slow but alive
8/10
Author: secondtake from United States
30 August 2010

You may be familiar with the lead actress, Simone Signoret, from Les Diaboliques, made a year after this film, and she plays a similar conflicted or complex,strong type of woman in a sordid world. She plays the title character, based on a Zola story, who is swept into a romance she doesn't completely expect and then a murder that she doesn't completely abhor.

And she is rather brilliant, a slightly different type than American actresses of the time, but commanding in her stoic intelligence. The two men are both first rate, one a foreign (Italian) charmer and the other a sharper fellow who is only slightly over his head. In fact, everyone is just slightly extended into decisions they don't quite know how to make. The fact that things go wrong is just part of great drama, and part of life, too.

The filming (photography and editing) is totally gorgeous here, The plot progresses slowly enough it might seem to drag, but I think it works in the long run, setting a deliberate and inevitable pace to events. What is maybe weakest is the ending, where things get a little spectacular, perhaps in a fascinating way, but certainly no longer believable.

Director Marcel Carne is no household name in this country, but the strength of this film alone makes me want to find others and get a feel for his style. Recommended for those who like drama, melodrama, and a sort of Euro-noir style, and who don't mind reading subtitles.