Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4411 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-09-18
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Black & White, PAL, Restored
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 181 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 Paradis is 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 Paradis gnaws 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

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

L'amour, c'est simple!
'Oh Garance! Tu ne m'aime pas!' Is just about the saddest line ever spoken in cinema.

Four characters, (loosely based on historical French figures) vye for the eye of the beautiful and serene Garance. The four stereotypical male character types that have continuously made great cinema over the last century. The cold millionaire aristocrat, the genius criminal, the amiable noble adventurous lover and finally our tragic hero, the romantic artist. Each seek her in their own way, yet each selfishly encroaches her formidable freedom with their tragic flaws. The romantic needs her exlusively and needs her unconditional love, the aristocratic will only ever see her as an object, he will never 'love as a poor man'. The lover is too full of dramatic hyperbole for her truthful sensibility and the criminal can never love, for his dark humour and excessive intelligence can not grasp its simplicity. For it is true, 'L'amour, c'est simple.' but it is also tragical and farcical. This film does justice to this fact on a grand and beautiful scale and certainly deserves its plaudits as one of the top ten best films of all time.

Probably the best film ever made
It is 7 years since I last saw this film and it is time to see it again. I shall post my order today. A deeply moving and tragic film, of huge scope. Please take the time to see it. I think that you will never forget it. The closing scene is one of the most tragic in all cinema.

Arletty is beautifully seductive as the heroine and one can quite understand why the hero, Jean-Louis Tritignant, would leave a wife and child whom he adored for the chance of her love. But the real stars are 'les enfants du paradis' themselves - the audience in the 'Gods' of the popular theatre 'Les Funambules' (sp?) where Jean-Louis is the mime artist.

Sounds gripping? Probably not. But please don't let this review put you off. Nothing in cinema is as great as this film, IMHO.

A French masterpiece.
Simply the greatest French Film of all time. Made in Paris whilst Paris was still under Nazi occupation this quite beautiful Film is wonderfully cast, acted, written and directed. Many great French films can lay claim to being the greatest, but Les Enfants Du Paradis is for me the greatest of all time because it is the richest, most humane & powerful. Let the human emotions of the French Theatre it is set in and around wash over you as you marvel at the performances and the characters journey's. I can't tell you too much as that would be give away what is a gift of a Film. If you like, love or are curious about French cinema, start with this Film and you'll not be disappointed.