Tripwire Reviews StudioCanal’s Le Quai Des Brumes 4K Restoration

Into The Shadows

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at StudioCanal’s 4K Restoration of Marcel Carné’s Le Quai Des Brumes, out now on Blu-Ray…

Le Quai Des Brumes 4K Restoration
Director: Marcel Carné
Stars: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan

Marcel Carné’s surrealist noir about a French soldier (Gabin) who deserts and finds himself love and caught in a web of criminal deceit in the port of Le Havre is a seminal exemplar of its kind and this 4K restoration from StudioCanal as part of its Vintage Classics label is a beautiful version of this film.

Jean is a deserter who falls for Nelly (Morgan), seeking redemption through their love affair but he falls foul of the local gangsters and so as it’s a noir, you know a happy ending isn’t on the cards. Gabin and Simon have a palpable electricity on screen, aided by the fact that they were a real-life couple offscreen.

The Le Havre that Jean finds himself in is foggy and murky and lacking any definition and clarity. Carne’s wonderfully dark tale of human frailty, based on the book by Pierre Mac Orlan and filmed just on the cusp of World War Two, when France felt that it was looking into an abyss, the film’s English title offers an even greater clue to its approach: Port of Shadows.

The rest of the cast offers support that only helps to bolster the overall sense that you are watching something special here. From Michel Simon as Nelly’s oleaginous guardian Zabel to Pierre Brasseur as the cocksure gangster Lucien, everyone serves a purpose here.

The location too is very much a character in Le Quai Des Brumes too with its shifting streets and discombobulating alleyways. Offering a truly atmospheric and immersive experience for the viewer, the restoration here from its original negative ramps up the drama and the tension in a uniquely French fashion. There is a real sense of tragedy at the core of Jean and Nelly’s relationship, that even though the solder tries to escape his fate, there is an almost palpable inevitability to it.

It has been categorised as poetic realism rather than film noir but it ticks so many of the noir boxes that there is an argument that the film does fall partially into this genre. It is interesting to compare and contrast this with British and American equivalents like The Third Man, Brighton Rock, The Maltese Falcon and Touch Of Evil.

The extras do offer a modicum of additional context here and go into elements like the symbolism of the dog in the film, which represents the liberty and freedom that Jean is never likely to find and the thematic obsessions of director Carné and screenwriter Prevert.

Le Quai Des Brumes is a rich and elegant slice of French cinema, and a worthy addition to StudioCanal’s Vintage World Cinema library.

Le Quai Des Brumes 4K Restoration is out now from Studio Canal’s Vintage World Cinema library.