Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942/aka The
Devil’s Envoys/Criterion Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
Just
before making his epic Children Of
Paradise (1945, reviewed on Criterion DVD elsewhere on this site and now on
Criterion Blu-ray all upgraded, save the controversy of the image being a bit
softer than maybe it should be), Marcel Carné made what would seem like a
simple fantasy love story with Les
Visiteurs du Soir (1942/aka The
Devil’s Envoys) that plays as a morality tale on its own, but means more
when you realize he made it while working with Nazis looking over his shoulder.
Im it,
two singers (Arietty and Alain Curry) show up on horseback singing, playing
instruments and looking for a private event to play. A working man outside of a castle tells them
of an event where they would be welcome and immediately, we see they are also
capable of magic when they give the man with an empty chain a live bear out of
thin air to enjoy. Then they get into
the party, almost crashing it and when they sing their song of love, they
subversively upset everything, yet they also start to separately seduce a
couple of the people there.
Things
get more interesting when their boss Satan aka Le diable (Jules Berry) attends
the party (in black) and causes additional havoc, but with darker turns in what
already has strange, dark, even disturbing overtones to begin with.
I don’t
know if Carné and/or screenplay writers Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche had
seen the 1939 Wizard Of Oz, but the
film plays as a dark satire of the MGM Technicolor classic from midgets with
ugly distorted faces (think the horrors of WWI or possibly the Holocaust, i.e.,
tortured people disfigured or looksism being used to ridicule and kill people)
to near musical moments that do not make this a Musical by any means and even
less so than anything in the MGM family-aimed film. Carné’s film is not for children and families
in general, so it is not just another fantasy picture like the Lord Of The Rings or Hobbit series.
More is
going on here, though the film is simple, too simple (maybe on purpose so no
one was shot to death?) to know otherwise unless you know the behind-the-scenes
history. Still, it is a remarkable film
in that it got made where it got =made and holds up as well as it does. Costumes and sets are superior, the actors
and casting very effective and overall feel consistent as the tone Carné has
here carries over to Children Of
Paradise (which would be his next film) in a big way. This may not be the classic that film is,
obviously, but Les Visiteurs du Soir
is an underseen, well-crafted film that more people should see at least once
and this Criterion Blu-ray is the best way to do that outside of a really good
film print.
The 1080p
1.33 X 1 black and white digital High Definition image transfer comes from a
35mm fine grain interpositive that has been restored, then further refined for
this presentation and I can say without a doubt that this film has never looked
better. There are still issues with the
some frame and shots, but they are minor, with this looking like monochrome
film of the time very much. Director of
Photography Roger Hubert (Gance’s J’Accuse,
Children Of Paradise) gives this an
elegant look throughout, with hints of darkness and visual effects implemented
smoothly for the most part for its time.
The uncompressed PCM 1.0 Mono track is from a new optical sound print
duplicate off of the nitrate original and the film has never sounded better,
showing its age sonically, but being clean and as clear as a film of its time
made under its circumstances could be pretty much. The combination will shock those use to
previous copies of the film.
Extras include
yet another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text
and Michael Atkinson’s essay Love In The
Ruins, while the Blu-ray adds the Original Theatrical Trailer and a 2009
French TV program on the making of the film that also includes more on Carné’s
career and the politics behind making this film under Nazi occupation.
- Nicholas Sheffo
